Laurie Kwasnik
Laurie Kwasnik is a Canadian experimental and documentary filmmaker. Her subjects often focus on the work of artists and musicians, and many of her recent projects celebrate emerging and pioneer artists in the international creative and free-improvisational music and performance community.

Laurie's work is influenced by her early studies with structural film pioneers Tony Conrad and Paul Sharits at the University of Buffalo, where she studied media and experimental film and was part of Buffalo's emerging video arts' community. She was a member of Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center and contributed to the formative years of the Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Arts Centre, as one of the directors of Axle Grease (later titled, Artgrease), a public-access TV series promoting video artists' work. Her early S-8 and 16 mm film work was concerned with ideas of representation and the materiality of film itself.

Kwasnik is currently directing and producing a feature-length documentary Fields of Snow, featuring the renowned international artist Michael Snow. The film chronicles six decades of his lesser-known, but significant career as musician, composer, and pioneer in creative and free-improvisational music. With over twenty years of experience in the film industry as director, production manager, camera operator and editor, alongside her experimental work, Laurie offers an intuitive and aesthetic sensibility to the artists and musicians with whom she collaborates. She has found a path within the free-improvisational community and her current project will be a testament to Michael Snow's musical career, as well as a valuable contribution to Canadian cultural history.

Kwasnik's 40-minute concert film Snow in Vienna, 2012, featuring Michael Snow's solo piano performance, has garnered accolades in the Toronto press:

    "Snow in Vienna, directed by Laurie Kwasnik, must be considered one of the greatest concert films in Canadian music history." - Peter Godard, The Toronto Star.

Other of Laurie's recent projects have included collaborations with senior artists including Canadian Governor General Award-winning artists Nobuo Kuboto and John Oswald, plus Paul Dutton, Eve Egoyan, and W. Mark Sutherland. Her upcoming 30-minute short film 1001 Strings 2017, features John Oswlad's composition Spectre and the evolved life of a single composition, originally commissioned by the Kronos Quartet in 1990.

Laurie Kwasnik's films have been shown nationally and internationally, including the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Palau de la Verreina Museum, Barcelona, The Winnipeg New Music Festival, The Art Gallery of Ontario, The New York Armory Show and TIFF Cinemateque.

Her film Out of the Bush Garden, 2017 features curator Francesca Valente and 220 Canadian artists' works in the collection of Luciano Benetton's Imago Mundi project. Out of the Bush Garden will be screened at Palazzo Loredan, Venice during the 57th Venice Biennale, August 29 to October 29, 2017.