shimby

shimby is an artist and administrator who currently works and resides between Treaty 1 and Treaty 4 territories. They have received funding from municipal, provincial and national arts councils as well as awards from local and transnational arts organizations.

Their practice engages with themes of place and it’s abstraction from a diasporic, queer and feminist perspective. Their experimental film work has been reviewed in Blackflash magazine and the Winnipeg Free Press while screening the world over. Their art writing has appeared in the Capilano Review as well as in the form of commissioned essays at artist run centres in Winnipeg.

Currently, they are the Executive Director at the Saskatchewan Filmpool, Co-Director of WNDX Festival of Moving Image and guest editor of the forthcoming Art&Wonder publication

shimby is an artist and administrator who currently works and resides in the Treaty 1 and Treaty 4 territories. Their practice engages with the theme of place and its abstraction from a diasporic, queer and feminist perspective.

Their art writing has appeared in The Capilano Review and they have created commissioned essays for various artist run centres in Winnipeg. Currently, they are the Executive Director at the Saskatchewan Filmpool, Co-Director of WNDX Festival of Moving Image and the Guest Editor of the forthcoming Art + Wonder publication.

shimby is a well-known experimental filmmaker in Winnipeg, as well as across the Prairies, and as such has made a huge impact on the film scene. I asked them what got them into filmmaking and they used two words to describe their inspiration: “Movie Village.”

Folks may remember the iconic establishment where you could buy and rent movies in Osborne Village, but unfortunately it no longer exists. It was a place where people met and discussed movies. It led shimby towards a career in filmmaking and inspired many local filmmakers.

shimby’s other inspirations include other filmmakers based here in Winnipeg as well as artists who work with textile pieces, such as Florence Yee, Lindsay McIntyre, Divya Mehra, Salem Mekuria, Andrea Dorfman, Scott Fitzpatrick, Nazlı Dinçel and Noam Gonick.

A person they would love to collaborate with? “Alli Logout 100%” shimby says. “Logout is a Black, gender non-conforming filmmaker and performance artist whose work explores the south, the abject, and the body.”

During quarantine like some of us, they have been trying to keep busy, watching shows such as Vida. “Vida is a must. My Mom and I watched it this summer and it’s about family, dyke bars, LA, Latinx feminisms, etc.”

They’ve also been watching Saturday Night Live clips on YouTube, and shorts like Jacob Farrell’s Grandmother (2017) and Mark Wihak’s The Ballad of Don Quinn (1992).