Both, Instrument & Sound

In this screening and talk, filmmaker Sharlene Bamboat shares her film project Both, Instrument & Sound. The event features both a viewing of the feature-length film and a look into a new installation-in-progress.

Bamboat will be in residence at EMPAC this fall to develop a new multi-channel installation version of Both, Instrument & Sound—originally made as a 40 minute, 1-channel film. The film offers an intimate and sensorially rich perspective on shifting practices of solidarity and alliance-building. Refracted through the life of 80-year-old Tony, an activist in Toronto’s queer community, the work opens up to both political and intimate modes of relation.

In its filmic material, sound score, dialogue and theme, Both, Instrument & Sound dwells in forms of tension, touch, and friction as it explores the potential of collectivity against the backdrop of rising neoliberalism.

Bamboat has described Both, Instrument & Sound’s method as “tension as an aesthetic strategy.” Its sound score combines an array of sonic interpretations of tension, collaboratively developed with musicians and the film participants.

In a moderated discussion after the screening, Bamboat and her collaborator Kaija Sirala speak about developing the multi-screen version of the work while in residence at EMPAC. Bamboat provides context on her larger practice and discusses the considerations involved in shifting a work made for theatrical viewing into an installation. Bamboat also speaks to the means she uses to consider solidarity and collective struggle in this work and past projects such as If From Every Tongue it Drips (2021) and The Wind Sleeps Standing Up (2016).