Calla Moya

Thousandsuns
Cinema

Calla Moya (Canada) is a queer, racialized, and disabled artist born in Brantford, Ontario, working in film, performance, and visual arts. Her practice focuses on the materiality of media, including the body, film, and digital apparatus to explore the ways in which material presence is engaged through tactile experience. Using reflexivity as a modus operandi to balance the tensions between improvisation and prescriptive rules, her work often foregrounds the interplay between image, text, gesture, and other elements. She received a BA in Cultural Studies and Philosophy from Trent University (2018). Her films remnanthood (2022); Collapse (2021); pas d’apparat corps (2020); My friend, the don valley (2020); blonde asian (2018); Anxiety (2018); and Palace of Gold (2016) have been exhibited at venues nationally and internationally, including the Museum of Contemporary Art (Toronto), Artspace, the8fest Small-Gauge Film Festival, Museum London, Vtape, London Ontario Media Arts Association, Regent Park Film Festival, and Festival Phénomena, among others. She is the recipient of awards, fellowships, and grants, including residencies at Lake Studios, Saw Video, and Studio 303. Moya is a 2022 Museum London and Media City Film Festival Southwest Seen commission artist. She lives and works in London, Ontario. 
ONLINE SCREENING DATES: July 10–August 10, 2023 FILMS IN THIS PROGRAM: past(or)already, 6 min, 2022

past(or)already, 6 min, 2022

In past(or)already, Calla Moya uses childhood photographs as a resource to explore process, materials, and personal meaning. These images, including the young artist on a swingset in her grandmother’s backyard and this area’s ubiquitous cornfields, were scanned, cut, and spliced into an almost quilt-like assemblage. It exists as an art object, with elements converted into 16mm film and then digitized. These meticulous steps allow for a creative contemplation of both artistry and identity.

           

In [Moya’s] exploration of the materiality of mediums of both the body and “obsolete” media, she explores the (im)possibilities of her identity, and the understanding that being queer, racialized, disabled, and a woman systematically impacts the way she is seen or “read”. By predominantly using scripts in her work, she is interested in the interplay between text, language, gesture, and its foundations in personal vs. political dichotomies.—Les Filles électriques

Watch Calla Moya in panel discussion about her 2022 film remnanthood, presented by Regent Park Film Festival

Southwest Seen features new commissions made by three artists with meaningful connections to Southwestern Ontario, and whose practices reflect this region’s diverse culture and history. Outdoor-facing projections from Museum London’s Centre at the Forks, overlooking the Deshkan Ziibi (Thames River), occur during hours of darkness from December 2022–August 2023. 

Southwest Seen features these newly commissioned moving image artworks by Calla Moya (Canada), Racquel Rowe (Barbados/Canada), and Jude Abu Zaineh (Kuwait/Canada/USA). Museum London acknowledges support from the Artist-Presenter Collaboration Projects Program at the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario. Special thank you to the London Ontario Media Arts Association, and Southwest Seen jury members Christine Negus, Evond Blake (aka MEDIAH), Anahí González Terán, and Amanda Myers/Kitaay Bizhikikwe.

All stills, photographs, and artwork for past(or)already (2022) courtesy of Calla Moya. Screening co-presented with Museum London.

   
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