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My name is Meg tall. And, um, I was born and raised in New Zealand in a lot of rural rural places with just like a gas tank and a school kind of thing until I was about eight. And then I lived in Rotorua until I completed my schooling and then lived all over the north and South Island and, uh, finally went to Canada when I was 31 or two, which was about 14 or 15 years ago. [00:00:30] What was it like growing up and and kind of moving around all the time? Um, I think the only good thing about it, the bad thing about it, is you wonder if there's any point in making friends because you're never gonna see them again. And you're gonna be gone in six months or a year or two or three. so But the good thing about it is it exposes you to all kinds of people from all kinds of different communities. And so I think [00:01:00] that's been really helpful. Being like a documentary filmmaker, you can kind of have rapport with anyone. So why were you travelling around so much? Um, my parents were school teachers and I don't know why they got moved so much. Maybe they weren't very good school teachers. I don't know. There are rumours. Um, but also, if you would go to rural schools and be like the one or two teachers in command, you got higher grading and [00:01:30] you got to move up the ladder quicker. Basically, When did your artistic bent come out? When? When did you first start creating stuff? Um, I mean, I always used to write poems in my head at night while I was not sleeping and, you know, read novels by the light of the moon and street lamps and passing cars and things like that. Um, and I drew a bit, um, but I think school can [00:02:00] knock that out of you. It certainly did. I had excuse me, art teachers that told me I couldn't draw and that kind of stuff and really wonderful English teachers. Um go, Mrs Dunn, if I could, I wish I could find you. She was just so encouraging and indulgent of my creativity that I had in the fourth form and the sixth form. Um, yeah. And so I started keeping my writing in a journal hidden in the wardrobe when I was, like 15, which [00:02:30] are actually at the Lesbian and Gay Archives of New Zealand. But you can't look at them until I'm dead. What kind of subject matter were you writing about? Um, I think. Then I wrote about what a lot of teenagers write. It's like teen angst poetry, which in Vancouver they actually have a monthly thing where you can go and read your teen angst poetry. Have a good laugh to yourself about how you know, genuine and you were and important. Everything was so some of it's just about relationships, friendships, attractions and [00:03:00] I don't know. I did used to write things about truth and justice and was sort of concerned with social issues. In a way, I don't think I even understood them in New Zealand. I think I was exposed to too much American television that we had in New Zealand at that time. Can you describe yourself as a as a as a teenager? Um, yes, people ask me this often. Mainly, they asked me what I wore, and I have actually written a poem about that that says I dressed on alternate days [00:03:30] like Annie Lennox. And, um, what's her name from the Eurythmics? Uh oh. That is Annie Lennox and Cindy Lauper. Yeah. So I was like, it was either the black suit and the cropped here or it was the luminous layers kind of fey looking. And I was, I don't know, rebellious. I, you know, wrote a speech about what I was going to achieve by my 50th birthday and won the speech prize and said I was going to achieve nothing. And it was all about [00:04:00] how I didn't want to be a housewife. And I didn't want to be a executive. And I didn't want to be, uh I don't know what else A shop assistant. I mean, I'd done some of these things and and the kind of stresses that I saw that each of these women faced in society, which, you know, I guess I wanted to be an artist secretly. I know it's a little shocking, very forward thinking. Where [00:04:30] do you think that rebellious attitude came from? Um, well, is it rebellious, or is it just questioning? Yeah, I think it's just questioning. I think it's just questioning the options that you see that you're given and I mean, not many societies offer art. Not many Western. Well, I don't know. Let's just say New Zealand in the 19 eighties wasn't offering art as a career. What was the reaction [00:05:00] to that speech? Um, well, like I say, I won the fifth Thor speech prize. And so I see now, I was just I was looking at a a video this weekend, which I've never looked at, Although I've had it for many years of when I was MC at 17 of the, uh, school principals leaving concert. And there I was in my suit and my derby hat and my bow tie and everything at an all girls school. And I realised, like since that sort of speech [00:05:30] winning thing, that they really encouraged me to be like that, outspoken and eccentric and questioning, and I'd never really realised that before, So But it had a limit. Like I had a friend that was a punk, and they definitely were really down on her, and they didn't encourage her at all and like they used to really annoy me. So it was like, you know, it's kind of like that middle class liberal [00:06:00] encouragement of difference or something. There's a limit to it. For a lot of teenagers, Um, standing out is just like the worst possible thing. You know, it's all about kind of not trying to draw attention to yourself. So how did you fit in by standing out? I don't know. I just did. Although I have several theories, one is that if you run down the streets like naked, no one will remember your face. So this is the kind of that approach to standing [00:06:30] out. If people are like looking at your crows, are they actually going to remember what you look like? Not really. And I don't know, coming back to that speech thing like they actually got me to do this speech on stage to the you know, those assembly with my deck chair and my pretend drink and my sun hat and everything. And then I, I guess by seventh form in the winter we were allowed to wear our own clothes to school, and I didn't know this, but [00:07:00] the boys from the Boys High School that I passed on the way that I later went to university with because I passed two boys high schools on the way to school. They used to have bets and things about what I would be wearing. And like, I didn't have any concept that this impacted anyone else or that anyone else noticed. I just did it for me. It was like it was like costumes. I had costumes, not clothes. [00:07:30] They were like outfits. And so I was curious. I mean, now I'm like, how can you not have realised that people didn't notice this In a tiny town in New Zealand, people are gonna notice. But I didn't. And so I was really surprised when people told me this later that they knew who I was, even though we didn't do the same school or anything you were saying earlier that that in, in writing stuff in your journal, you you kind of hit those in in [00:08:00] the kind of closet. Why did you hide them? Um, I think that, like lots of people do. I mean, I think a lot of girls start writing diaries and you, like, hide them under the mattress, and then your parents or your grandma or your sister or something finds it, and then they read it and then they laugh at you. And so then you just become a little smarter. I. I used to read my sister's diary. Sorry, Jan. I can't remember if I've confessed this to her while [00:08:30] she was in the shower, I would take the key off her desk and unlock it and read it. And then I'd ask her things that as if I knew about her life, it really freaked her out. It was very mean, but, you know, that was my small revenge on the older sister. What is that feeling like of reading somebody else's diary? I mean, that must be quite it. It really is a very such a personal thing, isn't it? I always was like a bit of a a bit of a snoop. And I think that was because, [00:09:00] you know, I lived in a family where people never really said what was going on, or and so everything seemed very secret. And so it makes you kind of want to snoop around, and I think I'm a curious person. People say I should have been a spy because I'm very good at putting things back exactly how they were, and I've actually Oh, this is a terrible confession, but lots of people know this about me. I've had to teach myself not to snoop like friends. Like when I used I house [00:09:30] sat for a year so you can imagine what kind of great snooping opportunity that was. But they they were strangers. And so I had to, like, teach myself to actually go no and not like Snoop Friends, diaries and things like that as an adult. And I've successfully managed to do that. You have to draw the line somewhere. And would you be comfortable with somebody doing that to you? Um, well, no. The funny thing is, I mean, Adrian, [00:10:00] that I live with. She's not like that. And so she would never, ever read my journals or go into my room or even probably if it was lying around in a public space. She probably wouldn't open it. And no, I'm sure I would hate it, But I mean, I'm more or less, you know, in some ways with spoken, spoken word stuff I've done. I mean, I make my living and sometimes from bearing my soul basically, so [00:10:30] it doesn't bother me in that way, like I read something recently it was my friend Raymond. Excuse me, and I can't remember where I'd written this down, but I read it somewhere recently, and I must have been in a story I'd written. And he said This was years ago and he said on the phone, something like I hear getting published Just like Like that, Like walking down the street, start naked. And then he paused for a second and said, Well, walking down the street start naked. Probably never bothered you anyway, [00:11:00] so you're probably good with that. And I was like, Yeah, I'm pretty much so. It's It's kind of like that. I think there's value in not just emotions, but I think especially thoughts and attitudes to each other as people, as different people, different types of people. I think there's value in getting that out and exposing that to [00:11:30] the light. And that's never bothered me, which I think most people wanna hide their private attitudes away, whereas I think we all have them and we should just talk about it. Do you hold a wee bit back for yourself, or are you kind of like completely out there? I mean, I probably do this. I certainly edit, and there's probably things for privacy or for other people's privacy or whatever that I might not put in there. But I maybe I'm fooling myself, [00:12:00] but I feel like as an artist, you know, uh, Jan desire, a wonderful director I worked with in Canada. She works with your resistance, so she gets to a point where she feels you. And so I try to do that as well. If it's like, Why don't you want to talk about this? Then? That's usually the most interesting thing in a way, so kind of not holding it back trying [00:12:30] not to. What do you think your strongest artistic statement has been so far? Hm, That's a very good question. I don't know. I mean, I think a couple of things come to mind, I don't know. One of them, for some reason, is at your age, which is the first, um, film that I made at your age, with um 16 No. 10 women age [00:13:00] 16 to 80 where we talk about ageism, uh, in the lesbian community or in the woman's community or just in society and our different attitudes to each other as women, as we age, and I haven't seen much stuff like that. You know, I guess I expected there might be other work. I'm sure there is other work out there that I'm unaware of, but because my aunt actually really Catherine [00:13:30] helped me with that. I tested the questions on her and a couple of other people, and she was like, No, no, no, no, no. You have to trick people more. I was like, What do you mean? I have to trick people more. This isn't so much in my nature, but what she meant was, you know, people aren't going to admit to their ages and like they are probably not going to admit to racism, you know, unconscious racism or something like that. So I added some. It's true. I added some things where I asked [00:14:00] people things like, Would you date this woman And then I and she was aged 30. And then I showed them another photo when she was aged 70 they didn't know it was the same person. And, uh, yeah, their answers were completely different. Both young people and old people gave older people older women gave completely different answers, even though they were looking at the same person, and so that's that. It's that kind of unconscious assumptions we have based on how people look. It's quite interesting, [00:14:30] isn't it? How a lot of, uh, discrimination or, um, yeah, the way you think is is happens very quietly. Yeah, it's, uh, you know, it's an unconscious. It's an unconscious thing. It's just there in our fabric of our mind, for whatever reason. And I mean, that's what I you know, said with the film, it's not bad, but let's just get it out and look at it, Yeah, So why do you think that [00:15:00] was one of your stronger, stronger statements? Um, I don't know, because I think I. I guess I just find relationships between women very interesting. And yeah, I just think that kind of thing is so unspoken about. And it was just interesting. The assumptions older women have about younger women and younger women have about older women. And [00:15:30] also as an aside, which was interesting for me, being a person with disabilities is a lot of it ended up being about disability, which surprised me. And there is some truth that, um, disability can increase with age the rate of disability in the population as your age can increase. But that was the assumption, and that was a lot of why people said they wouldn't date older people, was that they would be incapacitated and they wouldn't [00:16:00] be able to enjoy the things together that they think they enjoy doing now. But you know, I found that really interesting at the time, being in a relationship with someone who was, you know, nearly four decades older than me, who still has a social life three times busier than mine and goes out snowshoeing and, you know, at 82 and all that kind of stuff. So there's always, like anomalies and strange ironies. [00:16:30] And and also what that said to me while I was making that film was, um, it was like I was no longer even in the dating pool as a person with a disability, if that's what they're saying about why they wouldn't date older people, So I don't know. That was very interesting to me. How do you think disability, uh, comes through in your creative output? I think it's just like a lens. It's like, you know, it's like the lesbian [00:17:00] lens It's like the trying to have an anti colonial, anti racist, cultural, diverse kind of lens. It's trying to be aware of class, and, you know, I know I'm an eighties feminist. That's what I am. That's very obvious to me. When I go to queer things now and you know it's a different lens. And so II I look at all those you know, different [00:17:30] impressions that people face. And so I always say it informs my work, but it doesn't define it. And, you know, on the one hand, yes, I'm an artist with a disability, and we have big arguments and discussions about whether you're a disabled artist or an artist with a disability. And it's the same argument we have about whether you're a woman artist or whether you're an artist who just happens to be a woman and whether you're a queer artist or you and some people fall in different places along [00:18:00] that depending on what they choose to make work about. But it would be very difficult for me to define myself as one of those because I don't know. I'm always trying to address all of them at once, basically, and I think that has been challenging for people in my work is that I've refused to stick to one topic and that kind of I don't know what to do, how to describe it, a kind of like uni mind uni topic kind of approach. And actually, I found that people [00:18:30] can sometimes have a problem with that. Like when you're applying for funding and stuff. It's like they would just love it if I would just be queer or something or just be disabled or just abuse surviving or, you know, just chronically ill And they're quite they. It can be really, like, Structured and Ted and constricted how you can, I don't know, put that out there. So I'm very grateful. I have to say [00:19:00] to places like the Canada Council and the into arts who have funded me to come here because they understand into arts not only as interdisciplinary but across communities. And that that's what I'm trying to do is in a way, in my own little way is get different communities to come and look at each other what each other has to say, because I, I either run across these different communities or I have been able [00:19:30] to have access to them with things like funding and and going through agencies. And yeah, they want you to kind of like tick boxes. As to what? You know what? You know what label you're using today? What about your own sense of of kind of labels and where you fit? Do you find labels? Uh, useful, or do you try not to use labels at all? Yeah. I don't really have a problem with labels like I mean, yeah, on the one hand, you just want to put your art out there, and [00:20:00] and I'm aware sometimes when I, um, promote it to a mainstream media or a mainstream audience or a mainstream society Excuse me, I might, um, kind of leave a lot of labels off and just want the work to stand for itself. And some of those labels might pop up in descriptions of the work or in descriptions of the populations that are in the work. Since most of my work is documentary [00:20:30] in either video or radio or photography or from life, it's my spoken word. Stuff is mostly autobiographical. Um, but I I So there's that wanting the work to stand on it by itself. But yeah, if people do want talk about labels, I it's not something I like get all upset about and want to shy away from. I think they have their their [00:21:00] uses and, you know, also, in my kind of day job, I've done a lot in Canada of event promotion and, um, community outreach. And in a way, that's all about labels and saying to people, Why is this of interest to you? Um, but again, what I do is that cross community. It's like, OK, here's this film. Who could this, you know, potentially appeal to who's in there and it's never just, you know, I remember promoting shameless art [00:21:30] of disability for the NFB, and they were like, Oh my God, you're the best community promoter we've ever had because I was like, OK, it's made by a straight Jewish documentary maker, but she's got to out of five queer couples in there, so and it's about disability and art. So you're going art community disability, queer community, Jewish community, film making, community, students and yeah, you always have to think who could be interested and there's something in [00:22:00] there for everyone. Usually. So why do you create art? I'm driven. People have described me as very driven. I think I'm less driven than I used to be. I think illness of several kinds has many times tried to smack that driven out of me or oh, you know, that's a lesson I feel like in life. Philosophically speaking, I've I'm always trying to learn is that I can't [00:22:30] do everything even though I want to. Um, I think the simplest answer and what I've written down many times is that I'm only happy when I'm making things, and the rest of the time I feel not quite alive enough. Where do you think that kind of creative energy comes from? I don't know. I mean, I don't know if you're born with it or it's encouraged in you. I can't really see apart from my [00:23:00] lovely English teacher, where it was encouraged in me it it certainly wasn't encouraged in my family. Um, you know, although my mother valued at, um, poets and theatre and to go and see and stuff, I think I don't know if you're born with it, because I do. I do believe that everybody's creative But also I don't define creative activity as just art, [00:23:30] like, you know, like, to me, cooking is an art, and I am not creative in that way. But I know people who are, and I consider that part of creativity, like lots of things are part of creativity. And so I think we all share that as humans. I'm curious whether other animals make art, and I think they probably do. We just can't see it. [00:24:00] And well, I mean, they create nests and all kinds of things, and I mean, I don't know, how do they know how to do that? I mean, it's amazing what what other creatures make. And I I've always been fascinated by that that animals have culture and language, and they do. We're just not that good at seeing it. I think so. I think that creative impulse isn't even only held by humans, although I think [00:24:30] we think that's what defines us as humans is that we're the only ones that have art. But I don't actually think that's true. That's a really interesting idea about the idea that I suppose as an artist, seeing something, seeing the world first before you actually create something Well, that reminds me of what of a way in that Adrian described my photography when she first, when we first met 15 or so years ago, which [00:25:00] was texted. And so I used to take a lot of landscape photography. But like many women, I mean, it's a generalisation. But men can often take, um, like photos of kind of big things, and women often take photos of much closer in things. I mean, it's a gross generalisation, but when I read that, I was like, actually, there's there can be some truth in that for some people, obviously, you know, it doesn't apply to everyone. And so my nature photography was very much involved in the patterns that I would see [00:25:30] in nature. It might be on rocks or the sand or leaves, or it might be shadows on a tree or something like that. And yeah, it's looking at, even though kind of nature, so called nature is just making that no one or no animal or being is kind of making it. It's just happening, but I don't know or like things like crabs and make those little balls of sand. And sometimes when you're walking along the beach, you know, it looks like it's in the shape of a bird, and you're like, Wow, did they make [00:26:00] that or on purpose? Or is that just what I'm seeing? But yeah, and that's also my part of my artistic. I don't know what not U, but something is, is that patterning. And that also goes across my documentaries as well. It's always like, OK, here are these people the you know who may be a community I'm from and it may not be often I am, and it's like how, [00:26:30] uh, what do they have in common and in their life experience and what is different So, like, let's say, women refugees in Canada, you know, they have in common this journey of escaping persecution of whatever kind be it family, religious, state, war, whatever they're going through coming to a different country, they usually then face a different kind of persecution. I have to say in the country that they arrive in either [00:27:00] religious or racial or language based, um, because the society is different and it's not really ready to receive them. Um, but then there'll be these huge differences, like If you came as a government sponsored refugee, say from Bosnia. You arrive and you get everything you get language education. You get housing. You get a little bit of money to live off. You get some kind of support [00:27:30] services to hook you up with the community. If you come from Guatemala, where most women refugees are not government sponsored, they arrive at a border unannounced. You get at that point in Canada you got nothing. You ended up sleeping in your bathtub and renting your room to someone else to save up enough money so that you can bring your three Children through the immigration process. And like, and so those kinds of similarities and differences is just what [00:28:00] really fascinates me about life. And it's not just a fascination because, like that's about oppression. And it's about the hard reality of people's lives. But those kind of nuances that I want to bring out in that particular situation where you're dealing with stories of that kind of nature, how do you cope yourself with holding on to that information? And I mean, I tried. I was less good [00:28:30] about this when I worked in radio because it's so weekly and you're just churning it out every week. I was more good about it in film because you usually had more lead time. If you're doing independent documentary, I always meditated before I interviewed people just to get really grounded and also to really be able to listen and not bring myself so much to the interview. And and then I would sort of, you know, do little visualisations and kind of protect [00:29:00] myself with chakras and auras and colours and to kind of be not affected emotionally. But I have to say that didn't work in radio. And even when I didn't know the person when I couldn't see them when they were on the phone a long way away, I just remember interviewing someone and they brought up sexual abuse and I said in a break, Do you want to talk about this? I'd like to put it in a different programme and he said OK, and so we did. And then that was fine. And then at the end, I was like, Are you [00:29:30] OK? Is there someone with you and like you're always really worried about the person and I mean he was fine and he did have someone with him and he knew how to take care of himself. And I just remember afterwards and even the sound technician who was, you know, a hardened person from the industry from a long, not hardened but experienced an experienced person. And he looked pretty gutted at the end of it. And we talked about it a little bit in a break and about, [00:30:00] you know, what? It was like kind of doing this kind of interview. And I remember having like this in a row for three weeks or something that things like this happened where I was talking with people. I think it was why I was doing a series. It just happened that I was doing a series and we were looking at issues for people with intellectual disabilities or mental health issues, either It was like a funding stuff that was happening with money that was being returned to them after institutionalisation. So on the base of it, it seemed like something quite innocuous. [00:30:30] But this kind of stuff would keep coming out and out all the time. And after three weeks, I just remember walking back to my desk and sitting there and going, Oh, my God, I just can't do this. And you know, I think there is a lack of awareness when you do a community programme like that and I I noticed it with other colleagues that maybe worked with Maori communities where there's the same history [00:31:00] of, um, not so much, um, institutionalisation. But there can be some of that. But a history of, you know, having lost your language and your culture and your land and having so much taken from you by colonisation that you're just dealing with the psychic impact day after day after day. And I don't think that's well, well understood in the in the industry how that affects you and how that how people could be supported around that I mean, in the end, [00:31:30] I think it's up to you, and you just have to have your own supports and work out your ways to deal with it. And but my simple answer is you know it gets to you, and there's kind of no way around it. It's part of being human, I think, and I'm always so grateful for the risks that people take and what they're prepared to tell you and the way [00:32:00] I especially process that woman, refugee, um, towards the day we are all free, which is with, uh, women, refugees and First Nations women in Canada is that I consider storytelling a sacred duty. And it's my job as the director, or producer or interviewer, or usually all three and production manager, um, to create a sacred space, [00:32:30] which to me just means a safe space into which they tell their story and from which hopefully they leave unharmed and I, I don't know how I really dealt. It's easier when you're doing it on your own, like in radio. I don't know how I dealt with that with the crew, but I'm very careful who I have on my crew. I wouldn't have anyone who I felt like would you know, the violates, not the right word, but kind of interrupt that that kind of energy. [00:33:00] And they have to be people who can put their egos aside. They have to be people who can be very quiet and just sit and wait to see what people have to offer. And so I think, you know, especially in that film where it was with First Nations and indigenous women from lots of different countries. You know, they have a familiarity with that sacred space and storytelling as a sacred Judy. And so I think they responded to that. And I think that's why it was [00:33:30] ultimately successful and that people were very revealing in what they said. When you look at your work and you know you're you're working with, um, you know, the disability community, the queer community, the older community, first nation community can you see a kind of a through line or is there a Is there an overarching thing as to why you work in those areas? I mean, I think it's basically people that are marginalised by mainstream [00:34:00] society. I mean, oppressed for want of a better word. And you know when because this exhibition happens to be part of the Fringe Festival and you're trying to find that line. And I was like, Yeah, these are people pushed to the fringe of society by mainstream society. It's like, I mean, I don't agree with that in some ways because I think, you know, Maori people are really front and centre in their own, you know, country here um, you know, even though that might be part of what the radio interviews [00:34:30] are with, like with Elizabeth, Kitty Kitty or to To and people like that. So you have to contextualise that, um But yeah, it's it's not people who are from the dominant culture of, say, Western, European, white kind of society. And and so either I'm in those, um, like I say, I'm either in those communities or I can see what we have [00:35:00] in common and how our struggles interact and and the other. I was gonna say It's a trick, but it's not a trick, because I do it in all seriousness. But the other thing I do when I interview people, is I if they want. For one thing, when you interview people in radio after you're finished, they want to interview you and I let them. So basically it's like open season. They can ask me anything they want off, you know, we've turned everything off, but then they're very curious. It's been a very one sided thing, [00:35:30] and they want to know. And I was like, OK, you know what? That's fair enough. They can ask me whatever they want and I would ask answer truthfully and openly. But also a way to make people comfortable is to to tell them things about yourself and to reveal, you know, whatever experiences oppression, abuse, torture, whatever you've experienced. And then people see you differently. And they're like, Oh, I'm not just talking to this white girl from wherever it's like, [00:36:00] this is someone I have something in common with and it's a different dynamic. Yeah. Have you ever been kind of shut out of the community? Have you ever found that you've been in a situation where you people have kind of shut you down? Not really. I mean, with the with the woman, a refugee in first nations, one about the persecution and displacement of women. Um, which I, you know, made in part because, as it says [00:36:30] at the beginning of the film, 80% of you know, whatever it is, displaced people are a woman and Children. But you're not called a refugee until you make it to another country. And most women don't ever make it to another country. They remain internally displaced. And so I wanted to, you know, Whereas we think refugee, we think political. We think, man, we think running from the government, and I wanted to broaden that definition and that range of what we're talking about. So that was a participatory video project in the [00:37:00] very best 19 eighties feminist kind of approach. And so people had, like, they they got transcripts, they got copies of the footage. And I mean, I did the editing, but we showed it to people. And people got to say whether they were, you know, OK with how they were being represented. And so I think one or two people might have pulled out. Um, you could basically pull out until we cut, you know, until we locked picture. And so one or two [00:37:30] people pulled out right after we filmed them. You know, they went home. They talked to their Children, their Children completely freaked out. They were from Iran. They were really afraid. They came back and said, Can you erase it? And I did. I erased the tape in front of them. Um, and I don't I don't see that, like, as a failure or being locked out. It was just, you know, they on hindsight, made a different decision for their own safety. And then there were other groups that I was interested in having in that film. Um, like the Philippine [00:38:00] Women's Centre is very big in in Canada and they had been working a lot with women that had come on the, um, temporary work permits or the they had come to Canada to work as, um, living caregivers, which is a very controversial programme because they don't have, um, very good status in Canada, as as landed immigrants or permanent residents until they're there for three years. So they're in a very, very vulnerable situation. And they, you know, [00:38:30] I went to lots of their protests and stuff. But, you know, it turned out they already had access to media through filmmakers in their own community. And so they chose ultimately not to be involved. And, you know, that was something I totally understood. And a kind of similar thing with women that were working with, um, a lot of Chinese migrants came on a ship in three ships to Canada. The first summer I was there, which was one of the things that actually prompted me to make the film because there was this huge backlash of racism [00:39:00] and All these Canadians wanted to adopt the one dog that was on the ship and they were being incredibly racist about the Chinese migrants who were really there. Because, you know, there's Canadian companies in China doing all kinds of industrialization and commercialization and displacing people from their way of life. And so they have to do something and go somewhere. So there were There were people, our local, um, people from the Chinese Vancouver [00:39:30] community working with them, and they ultimately again decided not to be a part of the film. And, yeah, but I never see it like being shut out or locked out. I just see it as people making their own well informed decisions about how to be or not to be involved with a particular media project or outlet or whatever. And I think it reminds me of something you said [00:40:00] before we, um, started making this recording about how choosing a crew is really important because that can alter the dynamic within, um, a session. Yeah, yeah, and and that's something I found out by accident when I made at your age, it just happened by coincidence. I had volunteer crew, and, um, I had my dear friend Grant, who did most of the kind of drama scenes that we did. Um, and he was, you know, experienced with camera. He shot [00:40:30] a lot of stuff just for himself. And then when we did the interviews, um, I had two women, and it so happened that the young woman did most of the interviews with the younger woman and I had a friend of my aunts and who was, uh, you know, older. She's probably in her forties or fifties. At that point, um, she happened to be the the director of photography. When most of the older women came in. It was purely coincidence, but I just noticed how well it worked and how [00:41:00] the dynamic was different in the different ways people were interacted and just how she was with people and how she was able to draw them out. And then there was this other kind of coincidence that we, of course, were running really late because I'd scheduled five people in five hours. And so the people that Adrianne had warmed up for me because she was minding them and she'd been talking to them for 15 minutes half an hour. They were like and you know, she was older. They were completely ready to talk to me when they walked in. I didn't [00:41:30] have to, like, warm them up at all, and so that was very interesting. And so, yeah, then I when I made towards the day, I was really clear that we had to have a crew of women that in some way reflected the woman that we were going to interview and that, you know, worked out. And I think it would have been a completely different film. Like I say, if we had turned, if I'd turned up with a you know, a traditional true crew of great big, tall white men and all of their equipment, which is [00:42:00] common in film in Vancouver or anywhere it could be a different dynamic, even though those people can be lovely and yeah, but then to sit down with a group of women you know who are first nations or visible minorities or refugees and to talk about escaping torture and everything is, you know, that's a hard environment to talk into, and it does make a big difference, which makes people ask you what your experience is, but I'm not [00:42:30] allowed to interview you. So I'll have to ask you after after the recordings finished, What do you think is your favourite medium to work in all of them? I mean, I think I'm incredibly privileged and incredibly blessed to have had any opportunity to make any kind of art work. I mean, I do think art is central to society and culture and life, but [00:43:00] it is a little bit privileged these days. Um, but what I like the most is because I get bored very easily is to be able to switch from one to the other like I. I just I couldn't stick to one. I'd go mad and get stale, I think and bored and it's very stimulating to go from one to the other. And [00:43:30] it's also hard and stupid because you're always learning technology that you've never used before because it changes so fast. And that's challenging, and it probably affects the fluency of your work. I think it has affected the fluency of my work. I like I can see. If you stick to one discipline, you can get very, very good and very fluent. Um, but yeah, and what I liked the most is, you know, say, by about [00:44:00] 2009, I could see where it all started to come together. So that's when I made that So gay, which is an interdisciplinary show which looks at, um, not just oppression of gay people or my experience of it. It looks about racism. It looks at the hoi raids. It looks at all kinds of things. But I was able to use, you know, sound design and projected photography and, um, video and, uh, new media at the beginning [00:44:30] and the end with this kind of close encounters of the third kind starship kind of thing that goes on. And so that was just, like, the most fun ever, because it was like bringing all my different digital disciplines together and then doing this, incorporating them into this spoken word thing. And I think the same thing when I did, um, Portal Portage, which is I. I did with three other artists in 2011, and it's it's basically we were all meditating [00:45:00] on humans as part of nature. Um, but the different artists, like, uh, Liliana Kleiner, was, um, she'd made Luminoso, which is a short film, but it incorporates her photography and her painting. Um, because and in that very textured way that she also looks at things. And then Claudia Medina, um, klos was using, um, video and audio and interviewing people and having them talk about nature actually [00:45:30] out in nature on a trail that, um, her local community had saved from development. And then Diane Tan was using painting. Hers was so solely painting. And then mine was also using photography that had been made into video. And it's underwater photos from Tonga and, um, from New Zealand and Hawaii and the West coast of Canada. And so more and more, I'm more able to draw lots of different [00:46:00] disciplines together and that I find the most satisfying. I think because you get to use all of your knowledge and skills and and creativity, and it's pretty good. It's pretty fun. Doesn't make it harder. And I think we've mentioned a bit earlier about it. Um, that funders find it hard to fund somebody that's kind of across multiple disciplines. Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure, I, I did get some [00:46:30] funding for towards the day. And although some of it wasn't arts funding. It was actually at that point status of women Canada, which we don't even have in Canada anymore. It's gone. Um, but they understood it as a participatory research project. Um and so sometimes you have to be inventive like that about where you're gonna get your funding from. And, you know, there was like, Adrian was at the local Women's Centre and they're like, Oh, you should tell [00:47:00] Meg to come in and and this sounds really good And I think the status of women of Canada will be interested in this. And, you know, it turned out they were, and so that was very interesting. And the Canadian Race Relations Foundation also funded it in part as well as the VC Arts Council and the NFBFP Pro Completion programme. Um, and I think they were OK with the multiplicity of the refugee and populations. But I did [00:47:30] in talking to some other funders, like get feedback that yeah, they weren't very happy that I was doing First nations and refugee. They saw them as different populations, whereas I didn't because everyone's indigenous to somewhere to me, kind of that was kind of the through line. Um, so that was interesting. Those kind of political discussions about whether you could put those things together or not. Um And then I guess, like I say, inter arts, I think has that understanding. [00:48:00] I mean, I did go hard out and try and get film funding for a film that I didn't get funded in 2009. Although having said that, I'm aware that, you know, 80% of people don't get funding when you apply only five or 10 or 20% of people get it. So there could be no reason. You're just part of the 80% of the people that, unfortunately, they can't fund. But I do think people were challenged by, um because I did contact the jury of one funder because you can get feedback, and that can help [00:48:30] you if you want to reapply. And it was a film that was gonna be about, um, you know, being older. But also it was about mental health. It was about poverty. It was about disability. It was about art and creativity. It was about suicide. And I was in the life of four characters, um, including myself and Adrianne and a friend of mine that killed herself when she was 30 also my grandmother, who always wanted to learn to fly. Apparently I didn't find out until after she died, and [00:49:00] she, like, left school at 14 and worked cooking for all her older brothers and sisters, who I mean all her older brothers who worked in a a trucking company. And it was it was looking at, like, What happens if you if you die, not having created what you wanted to create? That was kind of my central question. And and why do some people get to create what they want to create? And why do some people not? And it looked at the fact that Adrian had a, uh, [00:49:30] a plane crash when she was 50 something, and at that point she was a potter and a ceramic cyst, and she was kind of at the height of her creativity, and she fractured her spine and she never, ever created again. And then, on the other hand, I kind of, you know, was disabled, became disabled whatever, and then became an artist afterwards, and I'm kind of like OK, so why why does that happen? Why does it stop some people? Why does it seem to bring out creativity in some people? And I did, you [00:50:00] know, get some feedback from the jury that they couldn't see the film and which I could consider a failure on my part to describe it adequately. And maybe that's true. But I I did feel in part because I sent the script and the treatment and stuff to people in two or three different countries, people with disabilities, and got their feedback while I was filming it. And they were so excited about the film and they were like, When can I see this film? Have you made [00:50:30] it yet? Is it screening? And they could see it like instantly and completely understood what I was trying to do and what I was trying to do, drawing these things together that seemed disparate but have a kind of through line. And so that was a really interesting kind of learning experience to me. And I'm like, OK, have I failed to describe this adequately for a community that's not familiar with it? Maybe. Or why should I have to, um, is the problem that [00:51:00] the Juries don't have people on them that have this experience of diverse disability experiences. And that's what they can't see because I think the narrative of disability is like tragedy, and and it's kind of this journey and you become disabled and then you come back and we're like, Well, we didn't actually go anywhere It's our kind of attitude. We're just here living our lives and making our art and stuff. And so, yeah, those are all interesting questions to me and I. I [00:51:30] mean, having worked for the NF, the National Film Board of Canada, on a disability outreach project that was trying to put people with disabilities in touch with the National Film Board and the film making community and the creativity community as a whole, which included writers and other kind of artists. And I did start to try and have those discussions about, um, who's making funding decisions and what lens they're looking at and what stories we get to tell and how they're framed. And not just at the National Film Board. I mean, they need to [00:52:00] happen at Creative New Zealand or arts access. I mean, probably arts access is on to it. Uh, but you know, at the Canada Council for the Arts and the BC Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council. And I don't think we're at a point where there's enough recognised, established artists with disabilities that they're on those funding Juries, um, with that lens and you know, they shouldn't have to educate the other jury members. But that's what inevitably happens. Is you by osmosis [00:52:30] kind of broaden people's view of what disability at is. You know, I put on the one of the many things I do, you know, my artistic disciplines. One of them is arts advocacy, and I feel like I don't have any choice about that. And it is that kind of education and and broaden broadening the horizons. And I went to, um beyond access, it was called. It was a national gathering of artists [00:53:00] with disabilities from across Canada, and I was one of two people invited from British Columbia by Michelle de, who has done Balancing Acts, a festival in Calgary, Alberta, that for many years has commissioned work by artists with disabilities, including me and others from BC and has just produced amazing stuff. And she's also done a lot of that political work and is trying to talk to the funders at that structural level. And it did really kick me in the butt [00:53:30] that gathering it kicked all of us in the butt. But I did have to. I can't just sit around making my art that I have to take that leadership role. I have to go on the board of things. I have to, you know, try and talk to funders about this kind of thing. Suggest, um, artists to them, perhaps that they should put on the jury. Yeah, because until we get to the decision making places, yeah, I think our work is going to be limited [00:54:00] in what is commissioned or produced because there isn't an awareness. And so I think that's changing. Like the Canada Council for the Arts, for example, has introduced, um, different offices into the equity office, and that's good. And also, they've they have an awareness of disability access in terms of I don't know, like, for instance, when I came here to Canada, I could apply. I think it was actually [00:54:30] fantastic how far they've moved. I mean, obviously there's further to go so I could apply to into arts, you know who understands? Like I said, inter arts not only as it's actually inter arts and circus arts, which is kind of cool. They so it understands inter arts is not only cross disciplinary, but cross, um, community and cultural. So that's good. When I'm when I'm applying and positioning my work, I can talk about it in a way they can understand. We can understand [00:55:00] each other, but then they also have a separate page, a separate stream, where you can say, Do you have other costs associated with travelling to this? You know, professional development opportunity because of your disability, and you can say yes and you can say what they are. And that doesn't come out of that other money that you're asking for and you know, that's fantastic. That's a great, fantastic improvement. So they, you know, funded someone to come with me as a disability attendant and help me with stuff. And those are the kind of structural [00:55:30] changes that I think need to change. But I mean, I think that's why the conference was called. Beyond access is that's just the start, and we need to have people who have a different lens about what? What is art or disability art or queer art or whatever when they're, you know, when they're looking at it? Because I've always Even though that film did have a A quite a disability through line, it probably would have. Apart from my work with New Zealand with one and five, it probably would have been [00:56:00] my most disability focused kind of piece of work. I also, you know, maintain the right, as anyone probably does as an artist from an oppressed group to make work that has nothing to do with disability or, you know, and that should still be funded. And, you know, I do think there should be criteria and what's the word? Not like quotas. But I think I think quotas are useful as a general rule. Like I think you know, you do need to look at the end of the day and [00:56:30] the jury and and is it, like reflective of community? Is, is Have you funded there at least 50% women, you know, 20% 25% 50% Maori or whatever it is that you're you're aiming for I. I think those things are useful because if you're not, you have to ask yourself why What was wrong with those stories that you know? You didn't think they were worth telling or bringing to an audience? You've mentioned [00:57:00] words like queer and lesbian, and I'm wondering what words would you describe yourself in terms of sexuality? I don't know. I mean, I think as you get older and you become hormonal, I've decided that we think that our sexuality is some kind of intellectual thing that we own and decide, and also just what I've seen happen in my own life and other people's lives. I'm like, You know what? It's probably just all hormones, [00:57:30] and some people seem to be one thing when they're 20 something completely different when they're 25. And really, we're just animals, and it depends what someone smells like when you meet them. It is my latest theory, so I mean, I have described myself as a lesbian for a long time, and I still would, and I do. But I mean, I've written a poem about that. It's, um I can't remember what it's called, but at the end, it's like so you know, if [00:58:00] I'm attracted to a, I don't know, an androgynous man and an intersex person and a a fem bisexual woman and a butch lesbian. What does that make me? You know, I mean, what the hell am I then? If you're going to define yourself by your attraction to other people, Um and you know, it's playful and it's like, OK, and be dexterous and be sexual, And it ends up saying that I'm a heterosexual. Uh, so I'm a heterosexual. I don't know. [00:58:30] I mean, I think there should be more, uh, playfulness around that kind of thing, even though I am still in favour of, you know, things like when we need it. Lesbian only space and woman only space and things that have been important for the development of my and other people's artwork and writing. Talk to me about playfulness in your work and and kind of humour. Um, I try to be funny, especially in my spoken word stuff, even though there are actually little visual [00:59:00] jokes even in my nature photography. And I think the only one who gets them are my twin brother, because when he looked at my photography once, he asked me things that no one else would ever ask me and things that I I think I see there and I was like, Oh, OK, so someone else does see these little quirky things that I've, I don't know that are just put in there to appeal to me. Um, I think my play for most like I said, is mostly in my spoken word. I mean, yeah, [00:59:30] like at your age, there is funny things in there you can have some humour about, you know, attraction and age and stuff like that. I mean, I would not say there's any humour and towards the day we're all free. There's not really You can't bring it to film, no matter what dark humour. You can have off camera with other survivors of torture, which you can. [01:00:00] It's not something you can bring to film. Um, and in my for me, anyway, in my spoken word and my writing. Yeah, I do think playfulness and humour is really important. And other people have said to me that that's something they like about my work because even though it's often quite challenging and I you know, I wrote a lot in 2009 with that so gay I'd written a lot of stuff about androgyny and being a lesbian [01:00:30] and being disabled and being chronically ill. And how people respond to me in public because I just find it wildly amusing these days, you know, and there's a poem about that, about how people look at my face and they think they're trying to work out. If I'm a girl or a boy and I, I can sit there on the bus and watch this process go unfold in their mind behind their eyes. And then they're kind of looking at my breast, [01:01:00] and one of them is a bit shaping because I've had breast cancer and they're thinking, Oh, a woman. But hm, breast cancer. Goodness, that's a bit serious. And then they're like, she's got those hairy legs and maybe she's really a boy. And what are those sparkly sandals doing on the end of them? That's kind of playful and fun. How does that fit in with this tragic life of this person in a wheelchair? Because you see this like tragedy, and they're like [01:01:30] she's sick and she's in a wheelchair and she's got the sparkly sandals and is she a girl or a boy and I don't know. You can't but have fun with that You have to partly as self defence and partly because it's just really funny and I don't mean to be mean to people and II, I understand the instinct. I mean, I've watched myself do it, trying to classify people. It is a human instinct. For some reason we do it. I think we've always done it. But I just like to have fun with it and [01:02:00] not laugh at people. But laugh at all of us and how we try to categorise people and we get it kind of wrong sometimes I think the other thing I realise that marks my work is is it is about documentary and documenting things to a certain degree, and that is sometimes part of the reason why it's not always so called popular at the time, because I'm documenting current history, which isn't necessarily [01:02:30] interesting to people at the time, because they take it for granted. So the fact that I ran around and took all these photos say in 1990 when a lot of lesbians and other people were protesting against, you know, the fact that the Treaty of Waitangi hadn't really been honoured and that the queen was here and they were spending 8 $88 million or whatever it was on the Commonwealth Games. It's kind of inconsequential at the time when you're just running around [01:03:00] taking the photos. But 23 years later they actually have a different significance. And I just I don't think I'm special in any way. I just think I feel the need to document things. I mean, my friend treason calls me the archivist. Um, they're like, Well, does it make have something written down or a photo or look in your journal? And she'll have the answer? Surely, um, yeah [01:03:30] and I. I just think that defines my work as well. And and I. So I've come to realise that it often has significance later. So I made this silly film called Where Have All the Lesbians Gone? I admit it's not a very good film. It's made on high eight in your backyard with your friends on the weekend kind of thing. But it was about a particular time and place in politics in Vancouver or queer politics in whenever I arrived there the late nineties, early, two thousands, and then it doesn't really screen anywhere very much. And then 10 years later, [01:04:00] if you live long enough, it gets to be part of this Vancouver visionaries screening a retrospective that out on screen puts on, and I'm like, Wow, that's kind of fascinating. You just have to live long enough to to kind of realise, what is the importance of your own work in some ways.
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