Self-imaging Racialized Girlhoods in the Time of COVID-19
Motion | Stop | Motion
Developed in collaboration with co-investigator Dr. Anuppiriya Sriskandarajah (York University), this participatory, critical arts-based workshop equipped Scarborough-based girls from immigrant communities with film production and editing skills to creatively express their lived experiences of the pandemic and their imagined futures post-COVID-19 through stop-motion animation.
This study aims to fill a gap in dominant discourses about racialized girls and COVID-19, whose experiences were often overlooked or subsumed under an all-encompassing ‘women’s experience.’
Sriskandarajah, de Jesús, and research assistant Jade Da Costa held two week-long workshops, each structured into three phases: pre-production, production, and post-production, culminating in a screening of their original films.
Each workshop welcomed a different group of girls.
Youth animators are guided through ideation and brainstorming as they learn to create storyboards for short films.
Preparation for shooting involves leading the animators through a series of prompts about how the pandemic affects their current lived realities and their futures.
Project Phases
The research team supports the youth animators in staging and shooting their stop-motion films.
The research team assists the youth animators with sequencing and editing their stop-motion films.
Videos
Can you remember a time when you felt joy during the pandemic?
What does it feel like to be in a pandemic?
When was a time when you felt supported during the pandemic?
What's the most significant change you've experienced during the pandemic?
Meet the Research Team
Dr. Anuppiriya Sriskandarajah
Community Partner
Dr. Desirée de Jesús
Dr. Jade Crimson Rose Da Costa
We partnered with Youthlink to provide youth with the filmmaking workshops.
YouthLink is a multi-service agency offering youth and family counselling, parenting support, youth shelter and housing, education programs and community-based programs for youth aged 12 to 24 and their families.
COVID-19 has particularly impacted marginalized youth, who have even more restrictions placed on their mobility, even less access to services, and even more precarious economic opportunities.
Featured Talks
How York University Professors are helping Toronto youth tell the story of pandemic life
New research by professors Anuppiriya Sriskandarajah and Desiree de Jesus is helping Toronto youth tell the story of pandemic life. Through LEGO stop-motion animation short films directed by Black and brown girls, these young filmmakers chronicle their experiences of the COVID-19 crisis and their hopes for the future as we learn to navigate our new normal.
Watch as Sriskandarajah and de Jesus discuss their latest project.
