Dana Inkster

female
Born
1972
in
Ottawa , ON
Canada
,
Ontario CA
Lives in
AB
Canada
,
Alberta CA
Biography

Filmmaker, interdisciplinary artist. Ottawa-bred, Queen’s- and Concordia-trained Dana Inkster is best known for Welcome to Africville (1999, 15). Africville was the African-Canadian community in Halifax that was razed for “urban renewal” in the late sixties. Against a backdrop of black and white archival footage of this neighbourhood under demolition unfolds a slice-in-time narrative set on the eve of destruction. Highlighted are three generations of women in an Africville family, including a proud and lustful, thirty-something dyke, plus the friendly and queer local bartender (Alexander Chapman). Lushly photographed against brightly coloured settings, the film raises the question, not only of a lost community history, but also of lost sexual histories and identities. Well known on both the queer international and the African diaspora circuits, Inkster’s 2003 documentary is The Art of Autobiography.