Liz Canner

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.

Liz Canner is a media artist and independent filmmaker who uses cutting-edge technologies to explore often-neglected social issues. Her latest project, Symphony of a City, is a cyber-documentary on community building and the housing crisis. Recently, she was honored with a Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation Leadership fellowship for creating innovative media projects that strengthen democracy.

At Radcliffe, Canner will work on a mulitfaceted convergent media project called “The Other Side.” This year, many of the 600,000 inmates released from prison will arrive in communities nationwide with no savings, no skills, no support network, and few job prospects. Within three years, two-thirds of them will be rearrested. “The Other Side” will examine the effect that recycling parolees in and out of prison has on the stability of communities, and its long-term consequences for society. Canner’s goal is to use digital video and Web technologies to create new types of interactive story telling and encourage viewers’ deep engagement with the complex issues of crime, punishment, and rehabilitation.

Since earning her BA from Brown University, Canner has received more than thirty awards, honors, and grants for her video art installations and documentaries. The Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media, the LEF Foundation, and the New England Foundation for the Arts have supported recent projects. Her work has been broadcast on television internationally and screened at festivals, including the New York Film Festival and the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. She has shown her work at museums and galleries, including Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the California Museum of Photography.