Reimagining Justice: The Circle Project comes to the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, October 30 to November 7

In collaboration with artists Adad Hannah and Jin-me Yoon, these events feature video installations made by people with lived experience of incarceration

SPONSORED POST BY Vancouver Moving Theatre

The Circle Project’s Harlequino’s Folly

The Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival is presenting Reimagining Justice, a series of video installations created by The Circle Project, from October 30 to November 7.

The Circle Project is a Vancouver-based association of artists and people with lived experience of incarceration committed to creating provocative art. Produced in collaboration with artists Adad Hannah and Jin-me Yoon, the installations are stimulating riffs on classic theatre that invite viewers to reimagine justice.

Reimagining Justice starts with Time Freed (Beyond Capture) from October 30 to November 7 at Gallery Gachet. Co-created by Yoon and 15 women with lived experience of incarceration, this video installation features 15 mysterious apparitions who dance and move through a landscape, affirming life and freedom. An Opening Reception takes place on October 31 at 12 pm.

The Circle Project’s Time Freed (Beyond Capture)

Over at KW Atrium Studio, What Fools These Mortals Be and Harlequino’s Folly will be on display from October 31 to November 7. What Fools These Mortals Be is a stunning riff on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, co-created with Adad Hannah and 14 women with lived experience of incarceration. Harlequino’s Folly is a Commedia dell’arte extravaganza co-created with Hannah and nine performers incarcerated in William Head, a men’s minimum-security prison on Vancouver Island. An Opening Reception takes place on October 31 at 2 pm.

Rounding out the offerings is a Screening & Talking Circle with The Circle Project, taking place on November 7 at 12 pm at Carnegie Theatre. Folks are invited to join The Circle Project community, including artists with lived experience of incarceration, for a screening of the co-created video installations. Following the screening, a sharing circle will invite reflection on the power of art to imagine—and help create—a world beyond prisons.

The Circle Project’s What Fools These Mortals Be

The Circle Project was created in 2019 by filmmaker Brenda Longfellow and restorative justice advocate Brenda Morrison. Broadly accessible online and shared through multiple platforms, the project’s works use imagination, storytelling, performance, and play to generate rich, intimate encounters with the complex realities of people with lived experience of incarceration.

The DTES Heart of the City Festival is presented by Vancouver Moving Theatre, and admission to the Reimagining Justice events is free. To learn more, visit the festival website.

Post sponsored by Vancouver Moving Theatre.

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