Bio

Francisca Duran (M.F.A. Film York University, B.A.H. Film Studies Queen’s University) is a Toronto based experimental media artist. Her moving image work combines digital and analogue formats and explores the intersection points of memory, history, politics, authoritarianism, technology, texts and familial and public archives. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in numerous film festivals, galleries and group screenings, and has been supported by Arts Councils.

Born in Chile in 1967, Francisca came to Canada as a refugee immediately following the 1973 military coup that ousted elected president Salvador Allende. She grew up in middle-class North Toronto and has lived in the UK, Vancouver and Kingston. Francisca has worked as a graphic designer, as adjunct faculty in GTA universities and colleges and as an arts administrator. Francisca continues to receive professional development from artist run centres like LIFT and Gallery 44.

 

Works

Even if my hands were full of truths

  • 2012
  • Francisca Duran

“Even if my hands were full of truths” is the third part of a series by the artist about the legacy of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. This component is a mirror that contemplates how memory might or might not become history, using excerpts from now-classified CIA correspondence and a photo-montage taken at the Museum of Human Rights and Memory in Santiago.

Even if my hands were full of truths

Retrato Oficial (Official Portrait) (2009)

  • 2009
  • Francisca Duran

“Retrato Oficial” animates the dissimulation and reconstruction of the great liberator of Chile, 19th-century revolutionary and republican Bernardo O’Higgins, and the historical reach of the late-20th-century dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Retrato Oficial (Official Portrait) (2009)

Mr. Edison’s Ear

  • 2008
  • Francisca Duran

An inventive exploration of the visceral nature of sound and how we learned to capture and reproduce it over time. Anchored by the discovery of the phonograph by the brilliant-and deaf-inventor Thomas Edison, this visual and conceptual collage of rich archival footage and animation playfully traces the birth of technological reproduction and the beginnings of our modern, audio-drenched world.

Mr. Edison’s Ear

In the Kingdom of Shadows

  • 2006
  • Francisca Duran

"In the Kingdom of Shadows" documents a paragraph being typeset on an early twentieth-century Ludlow Linecaster. The text is taken from Maxim Gorky's 1896 review of the Lumiere Brothers' film "Arrival of the Train at La Ciotat" (1895). As the words melt into a pool of lead, the alchemical magic of printing is linked to that of cinema.

In the Kingdom of Shadows

Boy

  • 2005
  • Francisca Duran

The visual poetics of Vancouver are brought to light as the filmmaker reflects on the cities she has lived in, motherhood and the birth of her first son.

Boy

Does this mean we’re going together?

  • 2004
  • Francisca Duran

Part two of the artist’s trilogy exploring the depiction of sexuality in teen films of the 1980s, in which a scene from “Valley Girl” is re-worked.

Does this mean we’re going together?

Dominion

  • 2004
  • Francisca Duran

A reworking of images of Princess Diana drawn from a CNN tribute called “The People’s Princess.” The isolated and manipulated images point to England’s colonial past and to the elusiveness of a media image.

Dominion

Swing

  • 2004
  • Francisca Duran

“Swing” was rotoscoped from a 16mm print of the filmmaker’s son on a swing. The drawings were then scanned and assembled digitally.

Swing

Retrato Oficial (Official Portrait)

  • 2003
  • Francisca Duran

After declared unfit to stand trial in England, former dictator Augusto Pinochet stands up out of his wheelchair and greets supporters.

Retrato Oficial (Official Portrait)

She was so young back then

  • 2002
  • Francisca Duran

A rephotographed excerpt from “Fast Times at Ridgemount High” is reconstituted as seedy pornography.

She was so young back then

Cuentos de Mi Ninez (Tales from My Childhood)

  • 1991
  • Francisca Duran

“In 1973, General Augusto Pinochet launched a violent coup in Chile that overthrew the Marxist elected president Salvador Allende. Thousands were killed, tortured, imprisoned, and exiled as a result. My family was among the many that were exiled in Canada.” - Francisca Duran In this experimental, autobiographical film, a young woman remembers and recounts difficult childhood memories of the 1973 coup in Chile when her family was forced into exile.

Cuentos de Mi Ninez (Tales from My Childhood)