Marusya Bociurkiw

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Marusya Bociurkiw
Born (1958-05-25) May 25, 1958 (age 66)
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
NationalityUkrainian Canadian
Alma mater NSCAD University, York University, University of British Columbia
Known forFilm-maker, writer, media studies scholar
Notable workComfort Food for Breakups (2007), This is Gay Propaganda: LGBT Rights and the War in Ukraine (2015)

Marusya Bociurkiw (born May 25, 1958) is a Canadian born filmmaker, writer, scholar, and curator. She has published six books, including a novel, poetry collection, short story collection, and two food memoirs. Her narrative and critical writing have been published in a variety of magazines,journals and collections, like Fuse Magazine, The Globe & Mail, Now Magazine and Rabble.ca. Bociurkiw has also directed and co-directed eleven films and videos which have been screened at film festivals on several continents. Her work appears in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the National Archives of Canada, and many university libraries. She founded or co-founded the media organizations Emma Productions, and Winds of Change Productions. She currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada where she is professor emeritus at Toronto Metropolitan University (previously Ryerson University). She is the founding director of The Studio for Media Activism & Critical Thought at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Contents

Early years

Bociurkiw was born in Edmonton, Alberta to Vera Anne (née Wasylyshyn) [1] and Bohdan Rostyslav Bociurkiw,. [2] [3] [4] [5] Her father was co-founder of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, among other organizations; a longtime academic and organizer with a significant impact in his field. Ukrainian history and culture were central to Bociurkiw's childhood, and instilled in her a sense of Ukrainian identity and history, as well as a desire to critically rewrite that history. [6] This is a common thread throughout Bociurkiw's books, essays, and films: reflecting poetically and intersectionally on what it means to be Ukrainian, Canadian, feminist,and queer. [7] Ksenya Kiebuzinski, of the Petro Jacyk program for the Study of Ukraine at the Munk School of Global Affairs, has said that Bociurkiw's work brings awareness of the diversity that exists within Ukraine. “She’s changing people’s attitudes,” said Kiebuzinski, in an article in Ryerson University's The Eyeopener. [8]

Education and career

Bociurkiw completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts (1982) at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) University. While there, she discovered feminist art and the new field of video art. She was part of what Bruce Barber has called "the gathering momentum of a feminist movement at NSCAD", [9] co-founding the Women Artists' File at the NSCAD Library, which later inspired the Toronto-based Women's Art Resource Centre. She was active on the board of the Centre for Art Tapes in Halifax, where she curated a Toronto-Halifax exchange of activist performance art entitled "Performance As Resistance" (1985), which featured dub poets Lillian Allen and Clifton Joseph, and others.

After graduating from NSCAD, she moved to Toronto and in 1983, collectively produced the documentary, Our Choice, A Tape About Teenage Mothers (Women's Media Alliance). In 1984, she co-founded the feminist video collective, Emma Productions, which produced several works, including No Small Change: The Story of the Eaton's Strike (dir. Ruth Bishop & Marusya Bociurkiw 1985) and Bullets for a Revolution (dir. Marusya Bociurkiw 1988). These films were produced and screened in the context of the dynamic feminist media culture in 1980's Toronto. [10] No Small Change: The Story of the Eaton's Strike and Bociurkiw's own film Playing with Fire (1986) were included in a 1989-1990 touring exhibition called Rebel Girls: A Survey of Canadian Feminist Videotapes 1974-1988. These were followed by several more single-authored works, including Unspoken Territory, about the history of racial profiling in Canada; and the more recent This is Gay Propaganda: LGBT Rights and the War in Ukraine (2015). [11] This film uses interviews with LGBT Ukrainians to explore the role of queer activists in Ukraine's Euromaidan Revolution and the Russian occupation that followed. Her most recent feature-length documentary, "Analogue Revolution: How Feminist Media Changed the World" (2023) examines how analogue technologies propelled important social movements, including second wave feminism. Bociurkiw's films have screened at film festivals and won awards on several continents.{https://www.torontomu.ca/news-events/news/2024/02/tmu-professor-history-feminist-media-documentary/}

Bociurkiw's narrative and critical writing have been widely published in such journals and collections as Border/Lines, Rites Magazine, The Journey Prize Anthology (McClelland & Stewart), Dykewords (Women's Press), Queer Looks (Routledge), Two Lands, New Vision (Coteau) and Unbound: Ukrainian Canadians Writing Home (University of Toronto Press). In 1994, Bociurkiw published her first book, The Woman Who Loved Airports (Press Gang) a collection of short stories, followed by a poetry collection, Halfway to the East (Lazara Press 1999). Bociurkiw's creative and scholarly careers have always been intertwined. While teaching sessional positions, completing a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of British Columbia (2005) and later working as a professor in the Radio and Television Arts (RTA) School of Media, [Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson]] (2007 to present), she completed her first novel, The Children of Mary (Inanna 2006), and her award-winning memoir, Comfort Food for Breakups (Arsenal 2007). [12] In 2011, she published the academic book, Feeling Canadian: Television Nationalism & Affect (Wilfrid Laurier University Press). [13]

During her time at TMU, Bociurkiw made space for feminist, queer, and anti-racist pedagogy and research through the Studio for Media Activism & Critical Thought, a research hub at Ryerson University that blurs the boundaries between media art, activism, and scholarly investigation, co-organizing dozens of radical research creation events like a Death Café, a feminist gaming workshop, and a panel with the Nunavut-based Arnait women's production company.Its annual Laboratory of Feminist Memory Cabaret, held offsite at Glad Day Bookshop, was an landmark event that mobilized feminist research and cultural work both within and beyond the university. She created some of Ryerson's first social justice focused courses that examined activist media production, and gender/race/queer theories of time-based and digital media.

Activism

Bociurkiw was active in the Toronto and Vancouver feminist movement, peace, and LGBT social movements. She was involved with Women's Action for Peace, International Women's Day Coalition, the pro-choice movement, the Latin American solidarity movement, Women for Economic Justice, and the artist-run scene. While living in Montreal, she co-taught the first course on LGBT cinema in Canada, at Concordia University, with Thomas Waugh. She was among the first group of women in Canada to enter the male-dominated field of media art, and to use film and video to draw attention to women's, labour and other issues. [14]

Bociurkiw's 2015 film—This is Gay Propaganda: LGBT Rights and the War in Ukraine—highlights the role of LGBT activists in the 2013 Euromaidan and 2014 Ukrainian revolution, which culminated in the expulsion of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. LGBT people in Ukraine had a lot to lose from the rise of Russian political influences there. [15] As a result of the illegal occupation and annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014—bringing it under the Russian LGBT propaganda law—many LGBT Ukrainians from Crimea and Donetsk were forced to flee to safe houses in Kyiv and Odesa. Bociurkiw's film was among the first to draw attention to this struggle and gives voice to the heroes of the Ukrainian LGBT rights movement.

In 2016, she published the article "Big Affect: The Ephemeral Archive of Second Wave Feminist Video Collectives in Canada," the result of several years' research into Canadian feminist media history and its intersections with broadcast technologies and activism. [16] She also, with Dr Elena Marchevska of South Bank University London, initiated an international research project analyzing the complex intersection between forced migration and new place-making strategies through art, called Project Finding Home e. [17] Her research and curation is ongoing, with the dissemination of the film “Analogue Revolution”, and the curation of a film/video series, “This Is the Feminist Archive” (2024–25), screening experimental feminist works from the late 20th century in independent venues in Toronto.

Works

Literary works

Marusya Bociurkiw's work is "cast with stark, memorable details that capture the conflicting essence of families". [18] Her books examine "complex relationships and histories." [19]

Films

Awards

Bociurkiw's memoir, Comfort Food for Breakups: The Memoir of a Hungry Girl, received Foreword Magazine's INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award (2007), [26] the Independent Publisher Book Awards (silver) for Best Autobiography/Memoir (2008); [27] and was short-listed for the Golden Crown Literary Award, Lesbian Short Story Essay Collection, and the prestigious Kobzar Literary Award and the Lambda Literary Award (2008). [28] [29] Bociurkiw was the 2013 recipient of the Deans' Scholarly, Research and Creative Activity Award at Ryerson University. Her short story, "A Girl, Waiting," was short-listed for the 2015 CBC Creative Non-Fiction Award. [30] The anthology Unbound: Ukrainian Canadians Writing Home, which included her story"Bringing Back Memory" won a 2018 Kobzar Award. [31] Her memoir Food Was Her Country was shortlisted for a 2019 Lambda Award. [32] The film “Analogue Revolution” has won several awards, including the Prix de Publique at the Image+Nation Festival, Montreal 2023, and the Spirit of Activism Award at the Nevada Women's Film Festival, 2024.

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References

  1. ↑ "Obituary: Vera Bociurkiw". Edmonton Journal. 2013.
  2. ↑ Bociurkiw, Michael (November 1, 1998). "A Personal Reflection Lives Lived: Bohdan R Bociurkiw". The Ukrainian Weekly. LXVI (44). Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  3. ↑ Corley, Felix (November 5, 1998). "Obituary: Professor Bohdan Bociurkiw". Independent. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  4. ↑ "Bociurkiw, Bohdan". Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine. 2015. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  5. ↑ Krawchuk, Andrii (2002). "Church and State in the USSR: A Bio-Bibliography of Bohdan R. Bociurkiw, 1955–2007". Harvard Ukrainian Studies. 26 (1/4): 23–49. JSTOR   41036847.
  6. ↑ Grekul, Lisa, "Pedagogies in Practice" in Sugars, Cynthia ed., Home-work: Postcolonialism, Pedagogy, and Canadian Literature, University of Ottawa Press Ottawa: 2004. 378
  7. ↑ Grekul, Lisa; Ledohowski, Lindy, eds. (2016). "Introduction Ukrainian Canadian Poet-Pedagogues". Unbound: Ukrainian Canadians writing home. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 10–11.
  8. ↑ "RTA professor screens documentary to raise awareness on LGBTQ+ rights in Ukraine". March 2, 2018.
  9. ↑ Barber, Bruce, "Introduction" in Barber ed., NSCAD: The 80's, Halifax: Anna Leonowens Gallery 2006. 10
  10. ↑ Masters, Philinda, "Women, Culture & Communications", in Pierson, Ruth & Griffin Cohen, Marjorie eds., Canadian Women's Issues: Volume I: Strong Voices, Lorimer 1993. 401.
  11. ↑ Costa, Daniela (August 10, 2015). ""This is Gay Propaganda" highlights LGBT life in Ukraine". After Ellen. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  12. ↑ Falkner, Julie (2007). "Book Reviews: Comfort Food for Breakups". Foreword Reviews. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  13. ↑ Yates, Dana (2011). "New book tracks television's role in Canadian nationalism". Ryerson University. Archived from the original on August 7, 2016. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  14. ↑ Beard, William, & White, Jerry, North of Everything: English Canadian Cinema Since 1980, Edmonton: University of Alberta Press 2002. 408.
  15. ↑ Costa, Daniela (August 10, 2015). ""This is Gay Propaganda" highlights LGBT life in Ukraine". AfterEllen. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  16. ↑ Camera Obscura 2016 Volume 31, Number 3 93: 5-33
  17. ↑ https://www.torontomu.ca/news-events/news/2017/03/together-we-protest/
  18. ↑ "Review of Food Was Her Country". October 27, 2018.
  19. ↑ "Review of Food Was Her Country". October 27, 2018.
  20. ↑ D'Souza, Irene (2004). "Book Review: Halfway to the East". Quill and Quire. Retrieved May 10, 2016.
  21. ↑ Falkner, Julie (2007). "Book Review: Comfort Food for Breakups". Foreword Reviews. Retrieved May 10, 2016.
  22. ↑ Klymasz, Robert B. (2007). "Comfort Food for Breakups: The Memoir of a Hungry Girl (review)". Canadian Ethnic Studies. 39 (3): 246. doi:10.1353/ces.0.0032. S2CID   143196681.
  23. ↑ Viteo, Kayley; Desrochers, Nadine (2012). "Book Review: Feeling Canadian by Marusya Bociurkiw. J-Source: The Canadian Journalism Project. Posted by Belinda Alzner". J-Source. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  24. ↑ "Review of Food Was Her Country". October 27, 2018.
  25. ↑ Balcerzak, Natalie (2015). "Sexuality and Sweets: Ryerson professor Marusya Bociurkiw earns runner-up title for CBC's Literary Non-Fiction Award". The Eyeopener. Retrieved May 10, 2016.
  26. ↑ "Foreword Reviews' 2007 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award Finalists Autobiography & Memoir (Adult Nonfiction)". Foreword Reviews. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  27. ↑ "Announcing 2008 Independent Publisher Book Awards Results: 12th Annual IPPY Awards to be presented in Los Angeles on May 30th". Independent Publisher. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  28. ↑ "Kobzar Literary Award: Shortlisted Books and Publishers". Shevchenko Foundation. 2008. Archived from the original on April 1, 2016. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  29. ↑ Cerna, Antonio Gonzalez (2007). "20th Annual Lambda Literary Awards". Lambda Literary. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  30. ↑ "2015 CBC Creative Non-Fiction Prize: The Shortlist". August 31, 2015. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  31. ↑ "Unbound: Ukrainian Canadians Writing Home anthology wins 2018 Kobzar Literary Award". March 5, 2018.
  32. ↑ Dundas, Deborah (June 4, 2019). "Canadians win three Lambda awards for LGBTQ writing | The Star". The Toronto Star.
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