Role: Producer for the NFB in Co-Production with MOMA Toronto
Artists: Parastoo Anoushahpour,Faraz Anoushahpour and Ryan Ferko
Charity is a public digital artwork that explores the unlikely controversy caused by an oversized chrome cow being placed in a suburban neighbourhood as public art. The experience opens with Charity, the eight-metre-tall cow sculpture in question, being modelled in 3D on a computer monitor, while an audio recording (along with a transcript) from the Markham City Council establishes the bureaucratic tone. A montage further introduces the prize-winning Holstein cow replica and gives the viewer a glimpse of Markham during its development, long before the arrival of the bovine champ. With the scene set for a Kafkaesque romp, the film turns interactive by employing 360° video and photogrammetry to present a variation on the familiar interactive real-estate tour. As we navigate a house in Cathedraltown, it becomes a site to reconsider a community’s confrontation with a piece of public art, in turn offering a portrait of private property. The audio draws us further into the quasi-absurdist hole that is the council meetings in which the merits of the sculpture, and its ultimate removal, are discussed. The municipal-level bickering makes us consider the broader forces at play in our democracies and what can happen when a cultural symbol is set against an ever-changing cultural climate. With a running time of approximately 36 minutes, this interactive documentary is an immersive and innovative case study in the challenges of representing multiple subjective experiences and histories simultaneously.
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- Canadian Screen Awards NOMINATED FOR BEST PRODUCTION, INTERACTIVE