Midway 2008

Directed by Dan Browne

Midway is composed of five rolls of Kodachrome Super 8 stock purchased from the Kodak plant in Toronto during the final days before it closed permanently. The rolls were already expired upon their acquisition, but despite this I held onto them for several years, waiting for a subject that would warrant the expenditure of such rare material. I eventually settled on the midway of the Canadian National Exhibition, a three-week long fair held annually in Toronto at the end of summer, after having working there for two years as a sound technician. The mechanical spinning rides, most of which have never been updated since my visits as a child, formed a suitable dance partner to my camera as a pair of declining technologies both still able to impart kinetic thrills.