Red Film, 2018
16mm film transferred to high-definition video (colour, sound)
13 min 1 sec

Cwynar’s Red Film (2018)—the third film in a trilogy with Soft Film (2016) and Rose Gold (2017)—considers the consumerism that permeates our lives through the process of studio staging, bridging analog nostalgia with our contemporary economy of endless choice.

Sara Cwynar (b. 1985, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) is interested in the way that images accumulate, endure, and change in value over time. Her conceptual photographs and films involve constant archiving and re-presentation of collected visual materials, layering diverse imagery with references to art theory. The works intricately recall advertisements, retail catalogues, and old art history textbooks. Her visual assemblages meditate on how vernacular images shape collective world views, and how those ideals can change through time and contextual manipulation. Cwynar was one of the recipients of the 2020 Sobey Art Award, the 2020 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, and the 2021 Shpilman Photography Prize. She earned her Bachelor of Design from York University in 2010 and her MFA from Yale University in 2016.

Presented by Cooper Cole (Toronto).