Centre for Cross-Faculty Inquiry in Education
University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, B.C.
Patti Fraser is an artist whose practice specializes in working
with communities who are seeking effective ways to use digital
video as a means to unite or educate others about their lives.
Patti is currently working on a master’s degree through the
Centre for Cross-Faculty Inquiry in Education.
From 2000 to 2004 Patti was artist in residence and story editor
for the Education Department at Pacific Cinématheque Film
Institute where she mentored and story edited many award winning
youth produced videos. She also produced videos on a number of
community based projects. In 2004 she was the Artistic Director
of “Documenting Engagement,” an Institute dedicated
to documenting community arts practice with artists from across
Canada. Her work in video, radio, and the theatre spans over twenty
years and includes Bowl of Bone, the international award winning
documentary by Jan Marie Martell, “BOOM” the internationally
produced play about landmines for young audiences (co-written with
Julie Salverson) as well as co-authoring six radio docu/dramas
for the national CBC Network. With Steven Hill and James Fagan
Tait, she created and performed the seminal AIDS informer and was
a founding member of the critically acclaimed Leaky Heaven Circus.
In 1990-1992 she practiced under the direction of Augusto Boal and worked with
Headlines Theatre which received the Mosaic’s Human Rights Award for popular
theatre work on violence and racism with youth during this time.
Her published work is as diverse as her work in video and theatre and includes
Canadian Theatre Review’s special issue on ‘youth and politics,’ Bodhi
(an international Buddhist journal), Witness to Wilderness (an anthology on Clayoquot
Sound), and Urban Coyote’s New Territories (an anthology of northern writers).
She has worked with the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation on their first language
and literacy project and was guest Artistic Director of Nakai Theatre in Whitehorse,
Yukon.
She has been invited to present her work at a number of international conferences
and festivals including: the 1996 World Aids Conference, the United Nations Conference
on the Rights of the Child, the Vancouver International Children’s Festival
Symposium on Youth, and ‘Breaking New Ground’—the Earth Project
2004. In 2004 she was guest artist in residence at the Theatre & Education
departments at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.
Patti lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Email: pattifraser@telus.net
