Sybaris

Description:

Nina Skogster’s single-channel video Sybaris unfolds as a series of dreamlike vignettes inspired by Giorgio de Chirico’s 1929 surrealist novel Hebdomeros, which loosely traces a man’s journey westward. Skogster first read the novel in her hometown of Helsinki, where certain passages evoked vivid memories of Vancouver. Drawing from these resonances, she created a video that attempts to depict unrelated events in a sequential continuum.

Shot in Vancouver, the video opens in a garden where three women, gathered for tea, discover a dove’s feather in the sugar bowl—an adaptation of Mina Loy’s poem “Omen of Victory.” What follows is a sixteen-minute montage of uncanny imagery set to a soundtrack by Lyn Vasey. Movement and flight are evoked through studies of sails, kites, and both local and exotic birds, alongside a recurring visual motif of classical winged deities and archers. Surrealist elements are heightened through animated sequences that open doors onto impossible portals and invert the colours of familiar landmarks, rendering them strange and unfamiliar.

The cast includes Sook Yin Lee in the role of Hebdomeros, with appearances by Asha Anand, Jean Marc Belanger, Gilles Brault, Anita Brochocka, Donna Chisholm, Dorje Chuying, Carmen Laferriere, Laiwan, Brice Macneil, Judi Norris, Dana Phillips, Veronique Rebeille, Paul Slakov, Esteri Tammelin, Mina Totino, Elizabeth Vander Zaag,  Lyn Vasey, Tim Verster, and Ben Wolfe.

A screening of Sybaris took place in the Grand Luxe Hall on December 5, 1987.

Video is available upon request.