It will be great to be back in Leeds for a quick visit and while I’m there I’m excited to be involved in the 10th Leeds Girl Geek evening! I hope to see several familiar faces there.

the evening’s guest speakers are…

megan l. smith // @cawsand is a new media artist, with a PhD in Contemporary Art & Graphic Design from Leeds Metropolitan University. Her projects probe new systems for delivering syndicated data through narrative structure and she often works with Arduino, geo-location, digital print, video, installation, and community projects as methods for storytelling.

Her work has been shown at ‘Unleashed Devices‘, Watermans Art Centre, London, ‘Twitter/Art+Social Media’, Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, and the Leeds pavilion at the ‘Amsterdam Biennale’, 2009.

leann erickson //  Director and Producer of Top Secret Rosies, LeAnn Erickson is an Associate Professor at Temple University in Philadelphia and has been an independent filmmaker for over 20 years.

Her work has appeared on television, in galleries, and has won international recognition in video/film festivals.

She is a recipient of regional and national production grants for her work from such funding sources as the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation and the Leeway Foundation.

6pm – Registration, refreshments

7pm – Megan Smith

8pm – Screening of Top Secret Rosies, the true story of WW2′s “female” computers

9pm – Skype Q&A with director LeAnn Erickson

9:30pm – Close

DEFUNCT aims to creatively uncover and re-tell stories about decommissioned, or abandoned bases, in Canada using as narrators inhabitants who lived at these locations. It aims to bring to the public realm aspects of Canadian history. A particular emphasis will be given to the collection of stories, views and experiences of immigrants who came to Canada after World War II and undertook a military career.

First-hand stories from people who lived and worked on the bases are sought. The project is currently collecting stories about CFB Cornwallis, in Nova Scotia. Some of the people who lived on these bases are veterans of World War 11, and hence the current priority of the project is to collect as many of these narratives as possible, as this target group is an ageing population. The project is also seeking stories from civilian family members who lived on the bases.

The project will collect oral histories in the form of video and audio recordings that will be broadcast online and at festivals nationally and internationally.  The video will combine footage of the bases, in the defunct state that they exist in today, with imagery from archived film footage and photographic stills, obtained from personal collections. Importantly, this project should also be understood as a means of building an accessible digital archive of stories that are tied to people, locations and moments in Canadian history.

The public dissemination of the online content will be gradual throughout the production phase and a video will be released in the lead up to November 11th 2012.

List of Defunct Bases/

CFB Calgary, Alberta
CFB Centralia, Ontario
CFB Chatham, New Brunswick
CFB Chilliwack, British Columbia
CFB Clinton, Ontario
CFB Cornwallis, Nova Scotia
CFB Gimli, Manitoba
CFB London, Ontario
CFB Moncton, New Brunswick,
CFB Penhold, Alberta
CFB Picton, Ontario
CFB Portage la Prairie, Manitoba
CFB Rivers, Manitoba
CFB Rockcliffe, Ontario
CFB St. Jean, Quebec
CFB Summerside, PEI
CFB Toronto, Ontario
CFB Uplands, Ontario
CFB Winnipeg, Manitoba

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1975 was the year this floor went down according to the Ottawa Citizen clippings that were used under it to level it out. I then removed two other layers of oild cloth/linoleum before I came to the original floorboards.

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Happy summer holidays everyone.