Calculating 63 was a collaboration with artist My Name is Scot. This video is in the collection of SFU Library, and has been screened in Vancouver, Banff, and Budapest.

Calculating 63 – a video by My Name Is Scot & Leannej

Over the last 15 years, more than 63 women have been listed as  “missing” from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, once, the poorest neighbourhood in Canada and infamous for high rates of drug addiction, HIV infection and homelessness, and now the site of a major gentrification ‘renewal’.

Because many of the women were labeled as sex trade workers, the authorities were very slow to respond to local concerns that there was somebody targeting women in the area. Along with the missing women situations of Juarez, Mexico and Guatemala City, the events witnessed in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside reveal the truly pandemic levels of violence and exploitation against women.

Avoiding the explicit, the video focuses instead on exploring the links between poverty, abuse and exploitation. My Name Is Scot and Leannej sift through the statistics, looking for feeling and meaning behind the numbers and finding out that poverty, violence and exploitation can disappear just about anyone.

The text was originally performed as spoken word by writer Leannej, during a protest held to highlight Vancouver’s missing women situation. It was re-recorded by My Name Is Scot and integrated with video footage collected over the last 15 years while living and working in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Previous Screenings:

2008, September, Victoria, Canada  –  2008 Antimatter Film Festiva