Greg Curnoe’s home movies: recording an oral history commentary

This paper documents an applied oral history project that focuses on the moving image works of Canadian artist Greg Curnoe (1936-1992). In order to document these works in a manner appropriate to their subject matter, a series of oral history interviews were arranged with a group of the artist's friends and family. Participants were asked a series of questions and were shown footage from a selection of Curnoe's films and videos, including two 16mm films—No Movie (1965) and Souwesto (1969)—and a three-part video series entitled The Laithwaite Farm (1974). While watching these works, the participants were asked to comment aloud and their resulting commentaries were recorded and transcribed for the E.P. Taylor Research Library and Archives at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Also included in this paper is a brief analysis of these oral history documents, as well as a history of Curnoe's work with moving image technologies.