Vtape is a Canadian artist-run centre located in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. It is Canada's largest distributor of video art, and the world's largest distributor of Indigenous and First People's film and video. The organization is run as a

not for profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

and is known for

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...

distribution,

media preservation Preservation of documents, pictures, recordings, digital content, etc., is a major aspect of archival science. It is also an important consideration for people who are creating time capsules, family history, historical documents, scrapbooks and fam ...

, exhibition programming, and training programs. Vtape's collection features more than 1000 artists and consists of conceptual art videos, video art installation, performance-based works, and social issue documentaries. All artists distributed by Vtape maintain full ownership of their work, and the organization does not require exclusive distribution rights. This model is seen in other Canadian video art distribution organizations

Video In Video Out Video in video out (usually seen as the acronym VIVO), commonly pronounced ( VEE-voh), is a graphics port which enables some video cards to have bidirectional (input and output) analog video transfer through a mini-DIN connector, usually of the ...

and Videopool.

History

Vtape was established in 1980 by artists

Lisa Steele Lisa Steele D.Litt. (born 1947) is a Canadian artist, a pioneer in video art, educator, curator and co-founder of Vtape in Toronto. Born in the United States, Steele moved to Canada in 1968 and is now a Canadian citizen. She has collaborated ex ...

, Susan Britton, Rodney Werden, Clive Robertson,

Colin Campbell Colin may refer to: * Colin (given name) * Colin (surname) * ''Colin'' (film), a 2008 Cannes film festival zombie movie * Colin (horse) (1905–1932), thoroughbred racehorse * Colin (humpback whale), a humpback whale calf abandoned north of Sydney, ...

and Kim Tomczak with the mission to improve the distribution and dissemination of video art and to compensate artists fairly for their work. It was incorporated as a not-for-profit in 1983. Vtape provided organizational assistance for independent art exhibitions throughout the 1980s and 1990s during conditions of intensive censorship of artists' film and video works by the Government of Ontario.

Aboriginal collection

Vtape began a dedicated collection of video works by Aboriginal artists in 1994, after being approached by

Zachary Longboy Zachary is a male given name, a variant of Zechariah – the name of several Biblical characters. People *Pope Zachary (679–752), Pope of the Catholic Church from 741 to 752 * Zachary of Vienne (died 106), bishop of Vienne (France), martyr an ...

. It is the only specialized collection within the organization, and the only collection at Vtape that will accept works on film and works by first-time artists. Longboy helped develop the collection as Vtape's Aboriginal outreach coordinator, and was succeeded by

Cynthia Lickers-Sage Cynthia is a feminine given name of Greek origin: , , "from Mount Cynthus" on Delos island. The name has been in use in the Anglosphere since the 1600s. There are various spellings for this name, and it can be abbreviated to Cindy, Cyndi, Cyndy, ...

. As outreach coordinator, Lickers-Sage broadened the collection's reach through the establishment of the imagineNative Film Festival in 1998. The foundation of the

Aboriginal Digital Access Project Aborigine, aborigine or aboriginal may refer to: *Aborigines (mythology), in Roman mythology * Indigenous peoples, general term for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area *One of several groups of indigenous peoples, see ...

in 2012 broadened access to this special collection by allowing curators from around the world to preview video and film works online, rather than at the archive in person.

Notes

References and further reading

* Gale, Peggy, Lisa Steele, George Elliott, Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, John Greyson, Marie-Hélène Cousineau et al. ''Video Re/View: The (Best) Source for Critical Writings on Canadian Artists' Video.'' (1996). * Ghaznavi, Corinna. "Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak." ''Canadian Art'' 17.4 (2000): 68. * Koostachin, Jules. "Remembering Inninimowin: The Language of the Human Beings." ''Canadian Journal of Law & Society/La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société'' 27, no. 1 (2012): 75–80.

External links

Official website
Film collectives Arts organizations established in 1980 Arts centres in Canada Film archives in Canada Video art {{art-org-stub