Talia Eylon is an MFA graduate of Documentary Media at Ryerson University. Her creative endeavours often explore the relationship between female experiences and representations as well as the media in contemporary western society. She is interested in reusing media as raw data. Her works have been exhibited across Canada. She was the co-chair of the 10th Annual DocNow Documentary Festival and has served as a coordinator of the Maximum Exposure Exhibition. She has interned with Vtape, Gallery TPW, and Toronto Life Magazine and at the Rhubarb-Rhubarb International Photography Festival in Birmingham, UK, and has served as the Photo Editor of McClung’s Magazine.
“no maybe yes is a multi-channel video installation comprised of eight short video chapters of appropriated footage from mainstream dramatic media. Using postproduction art practices, no maybe yes explores the depiction of inter-personal behaviours, customs and conceptions related to consensual and non-consensual activities found in popular fiction films and television in the year 2016. Framed into thematic segments, the work challenges the prevailing notion that our society lacks sufficient understanding regarding the meaning of sexual consent, exposing and exploring our conflation of consent and sexual assault as synonymous terms. Media communication relies on collective cultural knowledge. To understand the conflict and story lines of most fictional narratives, contemporary viewers need to be able to discern the verbal and non-verbal communications of a variety of characters. In other words, we can tell when touch is wanted or not, appropriate or not, because we do it every day when consuming and interpreting dramatic media. The ramifications, however, grimly suggest that sexual assault is therefore deliberate, with negative signals being actively ignored rather than misunderstood. If that indeed is the case, it’s important that we shift the conversation. (This work is a response and reinterpretation of 20 films and 22 TV series seasons released in the year 2016, amounting to over 130 hours of media.)”
