October 9 – November 30, 2025
Morgan Sears-Williams
Curated by Dandelion Film Collective
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 9th from 7–9PM
With participatory performance, The Loop Cave by Derek Jenkins
fixed in place examines the geological and personal erosion occurring at Hanlan’s Point Beach on the Toronto Islands. Hanlan’s Point Beach was the site of Canada’s first ever “Pride” celebration in 1971 and continues to be an important gathering place for the city’s queer community. fixed in place holds both joy and desire simultaneously, along with the grief and loss experienced in queer spaces through both personal and geological erosion.
Following in the lineage of handmade cinema, Morgan buries film in the sand dunes of Toronto island and merges images together through a hole punch, referencing early photo editors who would hole punch negatives as a way to ‘destroy’ an image. In this sense, analog film itself is a body that is susceptible to decay or manipulation through her hand, mirroring themes of grief and loss of queer space while referencing photographic histories. fixed in place includes photography, moving images, sound and experiential maps that approach Hanlan’s point by cultivating queer sensibilities that connect image and touch.
“Created across a duration of time, space, and subject, Morgan’s oeuvre is rooted in queer techne, producing knowledge through making, and feeling. The hand of the artist, the physicality of the film process, and the site itself become co-collaborators—an act of care for the queer inhabitation and history of Hanlan’s Point, and an approach to the wound of straight time and space.”
About the Artist
Morgan Sears-Williams (b. 1991) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultivator. Through her art practice, she reflects on queer
feminist histories both known and unknown, while speaking to larger societal structures of power and oppression. Bridging methods of alternative processes, experimental film and queer histories (both personal and political), she troubles traditional approaches to analog film in order to address contemporary concerns in image making. She has exhibited her works across Turtle Island and internationally at Gallery 44, Arsenal Contemporary, Contemporary Calgary and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.
About Dandelion Film Collective
Based in Hamilton, Ontario, Dandelion Film Collective is a loose consolidation of artists committed to working with analog film as a medium of expression and a format for exhibition.
About Factory Media Centre
Factory Media Centre is Hamilton’s not-for-profit artist-driven resource centre for film, video, new media, installation, sound art, and other multimedia art forms. Our mission is to develop and support a vibrant, sustainable, creative, and diverse community of Members and non-Members within Hamilton and its surrounding region.