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Vtape

Vtape is Canada’s leading artist-run, not-for-profit distributor of video art.

Featuring more than 1,600 artists and nearly 7000 titles, Vtape’s diverse collection includes works from the early 1970s to the present. Vtape is a vibrant distribution organization that represents an international collection of contemporary and historical video art and media works by artists. We make this collection accessible to curators and programmers, educators, scholars and public audiences

worldwide. In addition to providing a distribution framework for established and emerging artists, Vtape is committed to establishing video art preservation and exhibition standards, and strives to support hybrid practices in an increasingly complex technical milieu.

06/12/2026

🎥 RUNNING
🗓️ Exhibition dates: June 2–20, 2026
⏱️ Visiting hours: Tue–Sat, 12pm–5pm
📍Bachir/Yerex Presentation Space, 4th floor, 401 Richmond St. West

In Zachery Cameron Longboy’s quietly powerful recent work Running, a spoken “poem for my captor” accompanies Longboy’s exquisite, minimally animated line drawings. Seeming to emerge from a liminal state somewhere between dream and memory, Running draws us fully into the image-world that was introduced in the joyous video Guardian of Sleep (2022). This video will be running continuously in the Bachir/Yerex Presentation Space during the imaginNATIVE Festival and continuing until June 20th.

"The dream is filled with dance and song lasting into the late
She’s alive, he’s alive, they're alive, I’m alive
I’m alive, she’s alive, he’s alive, we’re alive
Running, running trees go by…"
—Zachery Cameron Longboy

Co-presented by imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival

06/12/2026

e-flux Film presents the June 2026 edition of the online series Staff Picks, organized in collaboration with Vtape and featuring three works by Susan Britton: Susan (1976), In the Mood (1976), and What Does Alienated Labour Mean to You? (1976).

Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Susan Britton first studied Advertising Art at Red River Community College before transferring to the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1975, where she began experimenting with video. After graduating in 1976, she moved to Toronto, made numerous videotapes, and exhibited widely. In 1980, Britton became one of the five original collective members of Vtape, alongside Lisa Steele, Rodney Werden, Clive Robertson, and Colin Campbell.

Britton’s early videos belong to the first generation of Canadian video art and draw on the emerging media conditions of the 1970s with a sharp awareness of performance, advertising, and the circulation of cultural language. Across these works, the artist assumes personae drawn from pop culture, mass media, and everyday fantasy, including the mystic, the vacationer, and the s*x worker. The distance between artist and character remains unstable, producing a mode of performance in which irony, self-presentation, and social critique become difficult to separate.

Made at the dawn of what was already being called the “information age,” Britton’s videos register both the attraction of new media and skepticism toward its commercial and ideological uses. Her characters speak in the language of confession, self-help, advertising, and desire, while the works expose the emptiness of cultural scripts shaped by consumption and media repetition. With their soft lighting, direct address, and ambiguous tone, these videos situate Britton’s own presence as both performer and shadow, examining how images produce identity, labor, s*xuality, and belief.

Watch it at the link in bio.

Images: Susan Britton, In the Mood (stills), 1976. 3 minutes.

06/12/2026

VIDEO OF THE MONTH:
A Horse Called Memory (2005) by Jude Bebonkwe Norris

Reverent and silent shots of pinto-coated horses fade into one another while the artist’s voicemail inbox runs out the string. Functioning at once as a portrait of the artist in absentia (each of the callers is looking for and not finding Norris) and a portrait of her Cree community of friends and fellow artists in Edmonton, the video’s disjointed approach to image and sound yields a potent brew of mourning and celebration. Dedicated to Norris’ friend and fellow Indigenous artist Clint Alberta, who had recently died by su***de, A Horse Called Memory also preserves some of his b***y humour. “Indian Affairs calling you,” one message begins, “We’re just taking a survey to see if you’ve had any affairs with Indians lately.” Both revitalizing and obliterating, the piece ends with Norris’ camera turning to look straight at the sun.

This video of the month selection is also meant as a companion to TIFF Lightbox’s screening of Clint Alberta’s Miss 501: A Portrait of Luck (2002), playing on June 21 to celebrate National Indigenous Peoples' Day.

🎞️ Now streaming on Vtape.org
🌐 Link in bio

Image Credits: A Horse Called Memory (2005) by Jude Bebonkwe Norris

05/01/2026

Happy International Workers Day from Vtape!

To celebrate May Day, and to put the focus on the pressurized situation in the arts, Vtape is featuring Clive Robertson’s Artists’ Union Rally, March 16, 1985 as our May Video of the Month. This tape is a condensed document of the rally that took place in Toronto in 1985: the Independent Artists’ Union (IAU) responded to cultural funding cuts to the Canada Council and the CBC handed down by the Progressive Conservative Party, in particular Marcel Masse from the Department of Communications. The rally included a march through the streets by over 800 artists and cultural supporters and concluded with speeches and presentations at the St. Lawrence Centre. The IAU was active from 1984 to 1989 with 700 members at its peak, transforming artists’ living conditions through advocacy for a living wage.

With the arts currently under increasing pressure from funding cuts, censorship, right-wing cultural backlash, and techno-cultural fragmentation, we recognize that this is nothing new. We have faced these conditions before and by organizing and working together, have been able to carry on doing the critical and fundamental work of independent art-making.

If you are in Regina, you can still see works by Clive Robertson and other 2025 Governor Generals Award winners, on at the Mackenzie Art Gallery until May 3rd!

🎞️ Now streaming on Vtape.org
🌐 Link in bio

Image Credits: Artists Union Rally, March 16, 1985 (1985) by Clive Robertson

04/30/2026

🎥 Celestial Q***r: The Life, Work, and Wonder of James MacSwain
🗓️ Friday May 8, 2026
⏱️ 7:00 pm, Doors at 6:30pm
📍CineCycle (129 Spadina Ave., rear)
🎟️ Tickets $12 in advance / $15 at door

Equal parts art project, history lesson, and whimsy, Celestial Q***r: The Life, Work, and Wonder of James MacSwain offers a portrait of an artist who defied convention for a life lived on his own terms. Directors Eryn Foster and Sue Johnson spent a decade checking in with the witty, erudite MacSwain as he moved about his life in north end Halifax, returned to his tiny rural hometown of Amherst, Nova Scotia—where he grew up, unable to pass for straight, in the 1950s—and discussed his lifelong, wildly inventive art practice. The playful, q***r work is cut out, glued together, and sung into intricate collages, analogue films combining handmade animation with documentary, and provocative exhibitions. Johnson and Foster, who knew MacSwain for decades until his death in 2025, combine myriad formats in the production (including 16mm, Super-8, and digital video) for an intimate patchwork celebration reflective of their subject’s own body of work. Celestial Q***r now stands as an elegy for a man who was defiantly original, internationally renowned, and an icon of artistic integrity. James MacSwain lived how he wanted—unabashed, uncompromising, and unforgettable.

Co-presented by , and

Canadian tour supported by the Canada Council for the Arts & Arts Nova Scotia

04/15/2026

e-flux Film presents the April 2026 edition of the online series Staff Picks, organized in collaboration with and featuring three works by Kyoko Michish*ta: Cherry Blossoms (1975), Being Women in Japan Series: Liberation Within My Family (1974), and Video Portraits – Men: Shuntarō Tanikawa (1982).
⠀
“Everything I do is related,” Kyoko Michish*ta, Japanese feminist artist and translator, told curator Jesse Cu***ng in 2023. “I’m always in search of questions related to aesthetics, fairness, and democracy, whether I’m writing, filming, or videotaping. Fairness, democracy, peace, beauty, pleasure, sincerity, and honesty, they are all equally important to me.” Michish*ta was one of the first artists in Japan to adopt video technology. In the early 1970s, she joined the Video Hiroba collective that included Toshio Matsumoto and Hakudō Kobayashi, and pushed that group’s emphasis on video as a consciousness-raising tool to include feminist principles. Her moving-image work can be separated into major strands, though these commingle and inform one another: experimental works, sometimes shot on film, observing natural phenomena and everyday scenes in the northern region where she lived for much of her life, first-person documentaries about women’s issues in Japan, and interviews with prominent male figures in Japanese culture whom she believed proposed alternatives to its dominant patriarchal sentiments.
⠀
Since 2022, Vtape has been working to restore, digitize, translate, and subtitle Michish*ta’s work, making her films and videos available again for public presentation for the first time in decades. Since the project began, Kyoko Michish*ta’s work has been the subject of exhibitions and screenings internationally and of renewed scholarly interest. Vtape currently distributes ten titles, with more to come, and in collaboration with them this edition brings together three works by Michish*ta.
⠀
Watch it at the link in bio.

04/15/2026

Our congratulations to the Images Festival on an incredible run of in-person screenings and events this past weekend! Sophie Sabet’s exhibition continues till April 25 at the Bachir/Yerex Presentation Space, presented in partnership with Vtape.

CONTINUING:

Return of the Bright Night | Sophie Sabet

Exhibition run: April 9-25, 2026
Reception: April 11, 11am-12:30pm

📍Bachir/Yerex Presentation Space | 440-401 Richmond St West

𝘖𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘚𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘦 𝘚𝘢𝘣𝘦𝘵’𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘮 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘩𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘶𝘱𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴, 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘨𝘦𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘴. 𝘙𝘦𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘢𝘱𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘯𝘦𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵.

We are thrilled to present this solo exhibition, and celebrate its recent US premiere at MoMA’s program Doc Fortnight Shorts 1: Intersecting Memories.

Presented in partnership with Vtape

Image: Return of the Bright Night | Sophie Sabet | Canada | 2025 | Digital | 10 min | Farsi with English subtitles

[ID: The image appears to be an abstract, monochromatic view of layered, flowing shapes with varying shades of grey and black.].

04/15/2026

Hotseat is a screening series of experimental video work from the legendary Vtape catalogue. The program was prepared by curators from Queen's Screen Cultures & Curatorial Studies MA/PhD. Sessions will take place on April 18th and 19th at the Screening Room, 120 Princess Street, Downtown Kingston. Free!

🎥 Hotseat
🗓️ April 18–19, 2026
⏱️ 4:00 pm–6:20pm
📍The Screening Room, 120 Princess Street, Kingston ON

The screening series consists of four programs: April 18th opens with ‘ICU (Image Care Unit),’ curated by Habibi Wang, which remakes the cinema into a clinic. The evening continues with ‘Non-standard munitions package (improvised cyclic fire),’ curated by Andrei Pora, which examines the repurposing of military techniques by contemporary video artists.

April 19th begins with ‘On Rites of Resistance,’ curated by Geoffrey Webster and Vincent E., which brings together ways to make spaces of shared survival. The series concludes with ‘Maskwa,’ curated by Sasza Hinton, which illustrates the everyday experience of Indigenous grief, both personally and communally.

Come and experience diverse programming reflecting the overlapping urgencies of our times! All sessions will be followed by Q&A with the curators.

Hotseat is coordinated by Gabriel Menotti and Deirdre Logue, with the support of Queen's Film & Media, Vtape, Kingston Cinema Society, and the Besides the Screen network.

04/05/2026

✨The has just launched Tramps, Troublemakers and Trailblazers: Trans Filmmakers!

This new collection includes works by Vtape artists Mirha-Soleil Ross and Xanthra Phillippa MacKay. Keep reading for the full scoop!✨

Boundary-breaking filmmakers reclaim their stories with these richly varied looks at the trans experience. Long misrepresented on-screen through disreputable and actively harmful images, trans characters have come into focus thanks to a pioneering generation of trans directors determined to capture their lives with nuance and hard-won insight. Curated by Caden Mark Gardner and Willow Catelyn Maclay, authors of the book “Corpses, Fools, and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema,” these revealing counterhistories of cultural trailblazers (RUPERT REMEMBERS, GENDER TROUBLEMAKERS, NO ORDINARY MAN), intersectional portraits of everyday survival (DRUNKTOWN’S FINEST, LINGUA FRANCA), and bold explorations of identity in the online age (WE’RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD’S FAIR, CASTRATION MOVIE ANTHOLOGY I. TRAPS) show that there is no single, common trans film image but rather a kaleidoscope of voices, forms, and lived realities.

Repost
✨Announcing our APRIL 2026 Criterion Channel lineup! ✨ Next month, step into the high-powered boardrooms where dirty deals and vast conspiracies unfold in our Corporate Thrillers collection. New director retrospectives spotlight the radical documentaries of Emile de Antonio and three classic noirs by Jacques Tourneur, while Tramps, Troublemakers, and Trailblazers surveys an emerging generation of trans auteurs. We’re also raiding our archives for a new ongoing feature: out-of-print Criterion editions with their hard-to-find special features. There’s so much more to choose from this month, including a new installment of Adventures in Moviegoing with Mary Bronstein, the exclusive premiere of Bi Gan’s RESURRECTION, and short films from BLUE HERON director Sophy Romvari.

04/05/2026

We’re here to please you, Baby | Deirdre Logue, E. Jane, Renèe Helèna Browne, Zhongyao Wang

Curated by Kiera Boult for

Co-presented with Vtape, InterAccess, Inside Out, 7a*11d, and Ed Video Media Arts Centre

APRIL 11 | 3:00 pm
📍Innis Town Hall | 2 Suss*x Avenue
Screening

𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘛𝘝, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘱𝘴𝘦, '𝘞𝘦’𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘉𝘢𝘣𝘺' 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘒𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘢'𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘴, 𝘒𝘪𝘬𝘪, 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘦𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘩𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘐𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮, 𝘸𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢: 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘒𝘪𝘬𝘪 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴, 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘒𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘢'𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦.

Please join us after the program for a conversation with Kiki and Riss Sean Cruz, and find tickets for the program on our website.

Image: Sacred Disease, Renèe Helèna Browne (2019). Video still.

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