The Transmutation of Visceral Desecration: Marginalizing Women, Murder and the Urban Environment Contextualized in Film

This thesis is made up of a 35mm film, reinsertion, and a praxis paper that investigated my film processes and research, concerning the missing and murdered women of Vancouver. The catalyst was my experience living in a city in shock during the Pickton Trial. In 2007 Robert Pickton was charged with 26 counts of First Degree Murder. He was tried and found guilty for six out of a possible 26 murders that took place on his pig farm in Coquitlam. My goal was to create a film that positions the responsibility of the murders on the City of Vancouver, its police, City Hall and residents. My research focused on my personal experiences in the community and feminist discourse. Through the creation of an experimental film about the murders, I explored ideas such as authorship, experiential art and absence as representation. Simultaneously, the film subliminally communicates the trauma of the aforementioned women. This thesis pursues several key questions: Can a city be a sexual predator? Who has the right to tell a story? Can film emote without narrative? It concludes that a society, by inaction, can condone atrocities, that the stories we tell are inherently our own and that trauma can be communicated through subtle movements, gestures or objects.