Sabine LeBel and Alison Taylor

Sabine LeBel and Alison Taylor have been working together, mostly on films and videos, for over 15 years. The first video they ever made together was a stop-motion animation involving some very disturbing dolls. It is on VHS. They can’t find it. But hence, the name: mutantoy.

Their current work centers around a low-fi sci-fi trilogy entitled ‘messages from visitors.’ The first instalment was ‘dispatches from the future,’ and it centers around a grieving woman who believes she’s being haunted through her car. In the second instalment, ‘diary from the brink of collapse,’ her car runs out of gas as her ghosts threaten to become more tangible. ‘Diary’ recently screened as part of In Your Pocket: Dear Diary, at Inside Out LGBT Film Festival. The third video, 'landing in the present tense' was shot entirely during the Neo Future residency at Arteles Creative Centre in Haukijärvi, Finland in May, 2016 and is currently in post-production. Here emerges a cross-temporal love story, set in a future that is neither apocalyptic nor utopic, where two chaotic creators are trying to orchestrate positive ecological changes by making unlikely allies, human and otherwise.

Sabine is an educator, researcher, and artist. These days, Sabine is an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. Her current academic research is on e-waste, affect, and the visual.

Alison is a film and video editor, writer, artist and dabbler in stand-up comedy. She has edited a wide range of TV formats and films. She was recently nominated for a CCE award for Best Editing in a Lifestyle/Documentary Program. Exile Quarterly published her short story 'Spud Gun.' in 2013, and she is currently shopping around her first novel.

Sabine and Alison live near, but outside of the Junction in Toronto with a collection of sci-fi goggles and two cats who also think it’s fun to rip the heads off dolls. For more info, visit mutantoy.squarespace.com.

 2016