On January 23, I met with artists Surien Fourie, Chris Reid and Erica Laine to discuss their upcoming collaborative stop-motion animation project. Funded by the Manitoba Arts Council, the currently untitled project is set to be released in October at the Westman Animation festival. In our interview, the artists discussed their use of animation and how their heritage has influenced their work, as well their experience being artists in Manitoba.
To start, can you give me an overview of your project?
Chris Reid: This is the first big collaborative project that Erica, Surien and I have done together. We've known each other for lots of years and started doing stuff together when Westman Animation was starting back in 2022. Erica and I did a stop-motion workshop, which Surien attended. I thought that we should do something for Nuit Blanche. Surien took over the stop-motion portion, Erica did the cutouts, and I've been trying to learn to digitally animate so I did that. Thematically, we each chose characters from our heritage, made up a story and put it together.
Can you tell me more about what your project explores?
Surien Fourie: Because it's sort of a lead up to the Westman Animation festival, our goal is just to get people excited and have them learn more about animation, what it involves and how you can really use animation in different ways to express yourself. With our project, we did clay animation, paper cutouts and digital to show you some of the styles there are. With this festival, we're bringing some incredible animators, which is going to be really interesting.
You’ve all known each other for a long time. Where did the idea to finally do a project together come from?
Chris Reid: I think part of it is because I am looking for ways to keep connected with the community. I'm at a point in my career where I feel like I can reach out to other people. I'm basically retired now, and it’s allowing me the time to start to consider where I'm at in relation to my community, and one of the things that I see in all of us is a struggle with isolation and finding ways to get together.
One of the things about this project is that we could go to our separate studios, work on it and then share it online. So we don’t have to haul a whole bunch of paintings or sculptures somewhere, and we don't always have to be at others' homes or studios. Animation allows for better online exchange. With animation or sculptures, you’re highly dependent on the quality of the photography to communicate, and that’s not the case with animation.
Stop-motion is notorious for being arduous and time-consuming. What got you into animation?
Chris Reid: I've always liked animation. I tried it way back in the late 70s when you still had a camera on a stand and regular film, and then didn't have an opportunity to pursue it again. Now, technology has gotten to a point where you don't have to have that whole setup.
Erica Laine: When I was in university at BU I saw a video by William Kentridge, who's a South African artist that uses charcoal to draw pictures, and then slowly changes them. That really influenced me. And then with my kids, I was doing Lego motion, which was super fun.
Surien Fourie: For me, I took a workshop by Erica, and it was just that free Saturday afternoon that we spent a few hours together with a few other people in the workshop, which was amazing. I just had so much fun because I normally work mostly in photography and painting, and so this was just a different way to express myself. I got hooked on it, and I even started doing little animations with my nieces, which I thought was so cool.
A major part of your project is that it combines your heritage. Can you tell me about the elements that represent each artist in the work?
Chris Reid: Mine was the old lady, who was a combination of the witch Baba Yaga, whose stories are very similar to Hansel and Gretel, and then Kikimora, who is a house spirit with legs like a chicken, and often a beak like mouth who steals people's breath while they're sleeping. Hence she sat on the man’s face in the animation. Both of them are Slavic mythological characters. I like the way mythology relates to our everyday. Mythology teaches us about our cultures. It's a way of continuing to exchange information with these archetypes.
Surien Fourie: Mine is the Tocalosh so that, of course, is my South African heritage. That was interesting because, of course, it’s a well-known story of folklore in our culture, but I didn't really know all the ins and outs of it, so researching it was really fun for me. We even have songs about this creature to scare the children into not being naughty. It was really nice to explore that part of my heritage again, since it’s been a few years. In the project, there’s a scene where my character gets upset because you can't climb onto the bed, and there’s a story in the culture that you can stop the creature from coming into your home and wreaking havoc by putting bricks under your bed.
Erica Laine: This year I learned I was mainly Scottish, so I looked up Scottish folk characters and found brownies, which are a lot like Dobby from Harry Potter. Then I added a raccoon tail to represent the native animals from here.
A big part of your project was that you were taking ‘sound donations’ from the Brandon community and incorporating them into the piece. What's it been like to try to find that from people just being introduced to your work?
Surien Fourie: With the sound recording, we wanted to have an element of the community’s involvement in this project, both to get them to know animation and understand it and to, of course, promote the festival coming up. I was the one that got people to record sounds, and some people were really shocked, and they didn't know what sound to make. But we actually got about 20 people or so to record sounds and while there was one sound I struggled with, I could easily find a spot for the other 19. It adds a different element to see someone else's perspective of what the creature is and the sound they would make, instead of what our vision would make.
Erica Laine: They really added a lot to the work, in terms of hearing the different voices and how they just come in at different moments. It's cool.
Chris Reid: Part of the reason for asking people to put in sound is because usually, you're getting people’s reactions to the work in a very passive way. And this way they have to actively interact in their reactions, which was very fun to see.
Can you tell me about your experience being an artist in Manitoba, and what the community here is like?
Surien Fourie: I could plug a little bit about our collective. We’re part of a collective that we started in conjunction with this project. It was initially the three of us, and then we got Derek Ford, who was also recording some sound. He's also a college instructor in animation media arts. Then we have Lucy, who is the curator at the art gallery. As a collective, we want to promote art and interaction with art in the community. Because there are little segmented groups and not a large one that really involves a lot of people and a variety of mediums, we’re hoping to collaborate with more artists and their projects, and bring more art to the Westman rural area.
Chris Reid: I moved here from Alberta in 2000, and Manitoba has been a very different arts community. I find it more supportive on all levels. There seems to be more room for grassroots activities and experimentation than what I had when I lived in Edmonton. So I've been able to do things that I wouldn't have been able to do if I had stayed in Alberta. Despite it being the [more] wealthy province, it doesn’t really afford that kind of experimentation or collaboration that we have now. I think because we’re isolated, it’s really easy to form a community and to do projects like this. We can form these partnerships without having to jump through a lot of the hoops that would be in a larger centre.
I think we have a lot of potential right now to build and despite my difficulties with technology, I think it allows for a whole new way of communicating, collaborating, working as a group and making sure that you're not isolated while also getting your work out there. So part of what we're doing with this collaborative project and our group is trying to promote the fact that we're here doing things, and that it's not a stagnant little community out here.
You said that the final project will be showing in October at the Westman Animation Festival. What can you tell me about the festival?
Chris Reid: Just today, I was thinking about whether or not it should actually be called a festival. Because it started out as a screening and one workshop that Erica and I did together, and then the next year we had screenings, but we also had four workshops that occurred over a number of weeks.
This year we're going to have the screenings again, alongside more workshops. So if I think of a festival being just over a weekend or a couple of days it wouldn’t fit our event, as it's going to be throughout October and November, with hopefully many people coming in from out of town.
For more information on the project, visit www.winnipegfilmgroup.com, or contact Chris Reid at christon@mymts.net for details.
Edited for clarity