Joyce Wieland

Joyce Wieland

Joyce Wieland, OC (June 30, 1931 – June 27, 1998) was a Canadian experimental filmmaker and mixed media artist.

Life

Joyce Wieland was an experimental filmmaker and artist whose work challenged and bridged boundaries among avant-garde film factions of her time. Her works introduced a kind of manual manipulation of the filmstrip that inscribed an explicitly female craft tradition into her films while also playing with the facticity of photographed images. Wieland's output was small but received considerable attention in comparison to other female avant-garde filmmakers of her time. As both a gallery artist and a filmmaker, Wieland was able to cross over between those realms and to garner attention and support in both.

Work

Barren Ground Caribou, a fabric installation by Joyce Wieland at Spadina subway station in Toronto.

In 1963 Wieland and Snow moved to New York where they lived for ten years. She attracted critical recognition of her work but eventually moved back to Toronto. Wieland later divorced Snow and kept a low profile until her death in 1998 from Alzheimer's disease. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1982.

Films by Joyce Wieland

• Patriotism, Part II (1964)
• Water Sark (1965)
• Rat Life and Diet in North America (1968)
• Dripping Water (1969) (co-directed with Michael Snow)
• Cat Food (1969)
• Reason Over Passion/la raison avant la passion (1969) (a meditation on the Canada of Pierre Trudeau)
• Pierre Vallières (1972)
• Solidarity (1973)
• The far shore (1976)
• A and B in Ontario (1984) (co-directed with Hollis Frampton)
• Birds at Sunrise (1986)

Films about Joyce Wieland

• Artist on Fire. Joyce Wieland (Canada 1987) directed by Kay Armatage

Further reading

• Johanne Sloan: Joyce Wieland's the Far Shore (Canadian Cinema), Univ of Toronto Press, 2010, ISBN 1442610603

External links

• Collections Canada: Celebrating Women's Achievements, Joyce Wieland biography
• Joyce Wieland Films at Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre