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By Jane Moloney, Ph.D.

At the St John's International Women's Film Festival this year, Studio XX seemed to be present everywhere where good things were happening.

A strange tale of connections and overlap.

I looked at the festival program before I left my hometown of Halifax and thought "hmm, the Arthouse session on Friday looks good," especially the Mapping Territories: A Shanghai Story. So I jumped onto the Web (being the internet squirrel that I am) to find out more about this Studio XX. Becoming increasingly fascinated by the philosophy and the history of Studio XX (and being infatuated with Montreal), I wanted to meet these people, see the works, feel the energy that jumped from the (web)page, and find out about the TransCanada Pipeline Tour. It seemed more than lucky that I would see a work in St John's that was billed as an "award-winning artwork was one of the highlights of Studio XX's 2007 HTMlles Festival for Media Art and Networked Practices_ and was specifically selected as a touring ambassador for Studio XX's TransCanada Pipeline Project."

Fortune favours those who arrive at the Inn exhausted. I arrived at the Fisher's Loft Inn at Trinity after three days of sightseeing in Eastern Newfoundland and discovered that the Shanghai Story artists Myléna Bergeron and Caroline Hayeur were busy there mapping the territories of Fox Island and claiming it for their own!

Fox (now Bergeron, Hayeur & Hassuk) Island in the distance

And the connections kept on coming...

On to St John's where I was introduced to Newfoundland, Nova Scotian and Quebecois filmmakers, performers, artists, and those behind the scenes; the institutional directors who make this amazing stage for art and connection possible.

Thursday evening I attended the NIFCO reception where Executive Director Jean Smith, gave a tour of the impressive facilities, demonstrated that infamous Newfoundland/St John's generosity, and the presence of Studio XX was felt again. I was gifted a copy of an xxxboîte – a beautiful artefact and a conversation piece in itself - by the Studio’s DG Paulina Abarca-Cantin, and secured an invitation to another part of the TransCanada Pipeline; jake moore's ArtTalk: From Strand to Structure at the Eastern Edge Gallery (should have read Studio XX's diary of events and not just the film festival's!).

Fascinating stuff for someone who has combined study in the arts with work and study with computers (now I know for whom the programming language ADA was named). The talk started me thinking about threads and connections, about gender and mathematics, about the means of production and the many women who were (are) the muse, editors, authors, mathematicians, and the milieu of innovation and technological advance. How do we ensure that we create spaces and opportunities for women to position themselves at the cutting edge of "technological exploration, creation and critique" without the competition, ego and powerplay of those who have relegated us to muse or enabler?

Then came the "Mapping Territories: A Shanghai Story" production at the fabulous location of The Rooms. An amazing space in which to experience the audio-visual assault of life in Shanghai. Fast-paced sequential digital images that brought movement into stillness and sounds that both lulled and jolted. Spectacularly effective to mute the sound for the images of deaf people in Shanghai whose energy was just as palpable within their silence, as that of the recreational dancers whose movements reminded me of the Pacific Island women from (my NZ) home. Trails of blue that seemed painted on, enormous blue and red telephones foregrounding smiling people for whom the image-maker's warmth was real in one still shot. Bergeron and Hayeur delivered.

Then it was time to party with those who had been so hospitable and part of the art:

Hats and gowns on the town:
Author Jane Moloney, NIFCO ED Jean Smith, Artists Mylena Bergeron and Caroline Hayeur.

Ready now to follow this Pipeline out of Newfoundland into Sackville, New Brunswick and see if the charm was all Newfoundland or if this tour takes its magic with it.