Cassandra Paige

Cassandra Paige is GlogauAIR resident
from January, 2024 to March, 2024

Hailing from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Cassandra delves into various artistic realms.

Cassandra’s artistic repertoire spans collage, writing, filmmaking, and acting. Her ‘Splitting’ Collage Series, crafted during her residency with the Feminist Art Collective of Toronto was exhibited at Vertigo Theatre in Calgary and featured in the winter issue of Room Magazine. Her work intricately explores the cycles of life, its impermanence, daily intimacies, and the enduring relationship with oneself.

Meet the Artist

How do you describe your practice as an artist and what inspires you to create?

My practice is experimental filmmaking, performance, and collage art.
What inspires my practice are all the little intricacies of life and all the weird quirks about being alive. The impermanence of life and just dealing with that as a concept. That comes together with the weird relationships we have with each other as humans. On the other hand, lots of movies and lots of poetry books inspired my artwork. I was raised on movies. I love some directors, a lot of their work, but I like more specific movies or individual stories or books.

How is your working process?

My way of working is definitely going with the process because even some of the cameras I’m using are really old and unpredictable, everytime I am like: we’ll see what happens. I normally have an idea of how I want to display my work, but I don’t have an idea of what the actual film is going to look like.
For instance, this project I am making in GlogauAir, it’s a lot about experimenting, the project’s about self-image and the evolution of self-image and a little bit of dysmorphia. So I am using mirrors which become really relevant in my work in a conceptual way. I like the concept of what you are able to see and what you see, that’s actually something I’m finding really interesting about Berlin where there are not a lot of mirrors. Even when you go to the bar, the bathroom mirror is covered in stickers. I kind of love it because you can’t fix yourself up or anything. I wanted to film the experimentation and the distortion of the real image, the image is not going to be perfect, I’ll just be pieces of it.

Can you remember how your artistic journey began?

I wanted to be a performer since I can remember, even being a kid and auditioning for the little plays they had in preschool. When I was young I studied dance and then I thought about studying film and film acting. Eventually my practice evolving into film directing felt just a natural progression because I love movies so much.

And do you have any memorable story or anecdote that had an impact on you now as an artist?

The only thing that comes to mind right now is this funny story. I was in second grade and there was a play in my school, where the lead role was Elvis. I really wanted to play Elvis, but they wouldn’t allow me because I was a girl. I didn’t really care so I auditioned anyway, but I didn’t get the role.
That made me realise how stubborn I am because I just kept wanting to do it even though I was so strongly rejected and completely unable to do my dream role of playing Elvis.
I think that’s why I started directing and producing my own stuff, so I could be in my own films where I had more control. And then that kind of just kept going and I wanted to make my own things.

Do you feel like Berlin is having an impact on your work?

Of course, in Berlin there is just so much to do and so much to see. I also find that it is really hard to focus here, I want to go to everything and do all the stuff I can. There’s so much art that we’ve been seeing that it’s constantly making you think about your own practice and how you can evolve it or how you can take what you’ve seen and add it to your work.
So it’s kind of distracting because there’s too much to do and see, especially because I was born and raised in a very small town where there’s nothing to do. Basically, it’s hard to stay focused, but I’m getting lots of inspiration.

How is it impacting your work being a resident in Glogauair? How do you think other residents are influencing your work?

I think being at this artist residency has inspired my work because there are so many talented artists here who work really hard, which makes me want to work harder.
The project I am working on, that was my initial pitch. So I already came with that idea. And then as I talked to more people, I realised, oh my gosh, we’re all talking about our bodies a lot. And it seems like a lot of people are doing that. So I think it’s maybe just relevant to the times we are living in. I think there’s a lot of body positivity, but then it’s like, also it was the opposite way where plastic surgery is becoming really normalised. And it just feels like there’s a lot of body on the brain. So maybe that’s why we are all talking about the body.

And what are your plans afterwards?

Go home. Get back to work. I am doing post-production on a film that we shot this summer. So I need to go home and do that.

Statement

Cassandra is a multidisciplinary artist based out of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She attended four years post secondary in theatre and film, and has gone on to produce and direct a number of short films and music videos. Most notable, her experimental film ‘Fish Bone’ has screened at the Edmonton International Film Fest, Cinema Spectacular and more. Currently, she is in pre-production on ‘Secret Time’ a short film in collaboration with filmmaker Ryan Leedu, the second film between the pair. ‘No Bedroom’ their first, screened in April 2023 at the Canadian Film Fest where Cassandra won breakout performance for her role in the film. Cassandras practice includes collage, writing, filmmaking and acting. The Collage Series ‘Splitting’ was created during her time at Artscape Gibraltar Point Artist Residency with the Feminist Art Collective of Toronto in summer 2023. It went on to Exhibit at Vertigo theatre in Calgary, and in the winter issue of Room Magazine based out of Toronto. Her work explores the cycles of life and its impermanence, the daily intimacies we have with each other, and the lifelong relationship we have with ourselves.

Cassandra Paige

GlogauAIR Project

To create a series of short experimental films exploring the theme of Body Dysmorphia. My proposed presentation would be to project the films into small mirrors, that would reflect onto walls in fragmented images for viewers to watch. The success of the project relies heavily on the presentation and technical aspects. I believe the residency can facilitate this presentation and it is my reasoning for choosing Glogauair. By using the medium of experimental filmmaking the images can represent a feeling in a non-linear and subtle way, creating more room for the audience to participate in the interpretation of the piece. During my three months I will film, edit, and create sound for the films. I intent to film using the new environment and living settings as my starting place. New mirrors in a new space always change the way we see ourselves, I hope to utilize this in my project.

Video

CV Summary

Education

2013-2015 Motion Picture Arts Program at Red Deer College
2011-2013 Theatre Performance and Creation program at Red Deer College

Films

2023 “Secret Time” Short film. Actor, Producer
“If I Died” Short film. Producer, Writer
2022 “No Bedroom” Short film. Actor, Producer
2021 “Knives’” AFA funded short film. Writer, director
2020 “With Love, Tommy” Canada council funded short film. Writer, Director, Editor
“On my Mind” Vissia – Music Video. Director, producer, Editor, Styling
“B-Side Baby” King Bull – Music Video. Director, Producer, Editor
“About Moving On” Vissia – Music Video. Director, Editor, Styling
2019 “Fish Bone” Micro short film. Writer, Director, Editor
2018 “AL” Haaze – Music video. Writer, Director, Editor
“Ugly Girl” Short film. Writer, Director, Editor, Actor
“Stillness” Stephan Palm – Live Music Video. Editor
“Stereotypically Doomed” Haaze – Music Video. Director, Editor
2016 “The Annual” Feature Film. Grip, Sound Recorder, Background Actor
“Inconvenient” Short film. Writer, Director
2015 “Mending With Gold”. Writer, Director, Co-Editor

Festivals and Screenings

2023 ‘No Bedroom’ Screens at the Edmonton Internation Film Festival
“If I Died” Screens at GrrlhausCinema Berlin
“No Bedroom” Screens at Canadian Film Fest in Toronto
2021 ‘With Love, Tommy’ screens at Mirror Mountain Film Festival
‘Fish Bone’ Screens at Cinema Spectacular
2020 ‘Fish Bone’ Screens at Edmonton International Film Festival
‘Fish Bone’ screens at Oregon Short Film Festival Winter
‘AL’ screens at GRRL HAUS CINEMA Film Festival in Berlin for their 2020 screenings.
2019 ‘Mending with Gold’ screened at K-Days Celebrations in Edmonton
2016 ‘Mending with Gold’ nominated for best Screenplay at Mirror Mountain Film Festival
‘Mending with Gold’ given an award of distinction at the Canadian and International Short film festival
2015 ‘Mending with Gold’ awarded best experimental film at the Edmonton Short Film Festival.

Grants and Awards

2023 Cassandra Wins Breakout Performance at Canadian Film Festival in Toronto for her performance in “No Bedroom
Cassandra awarded Edmonton Arts Council funding to attend the Feminist Art Collective residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point on the Toronto Islands
2021 AFA individual project grant to fund short film ‘Knives”
2020 Canada Council Digital Shorts Film Grant for short film “With Love, Tommy”
2018 Telus STORYHIVE grant for music video AL for Canadian band HAAZE
Telus STORYHIVE grant for short film ‘Ugly Girl’
2016 Telus STORYHIVE grant for short film ‘Inconvenient’

Publications