Biographical Information

Cooper Battersby (b. 1971, Penticton British Columbia, Canada) and Emily Vey Duke (b. 1972, Halifax Nova Scotia, Canada) have been working collaboratively since June 1994. They work in printed matter, installation, curation and sound, but their primary practice is the production of single-channel video. Their work has been exhibited in galleries and at festivals in North and South America and throughout Europe, including the Walker Center (Minneapolis), The Banff Centre (Banff), The Vancouver Art Gallery (Vancouver), YYZ (Toronto), The Renaissance Society (Chicago), The New York Video Festival (NYC), The European Media Arts Festival (Osnabruck), Impakt (Utrecht) and The Images Festival (Toronto). Their tape Being Fucked Up (2000) has been awarded prizes from film festivals in Switzerland, Germany and the USA. Bad Ideas for Paradise (2002) was purchased for broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and for the libraries at Harvard and Princeton, and has won prizes from the NYExpo (NYC) and the Onion City festival (Chicago). I am a Conjuror (2004) has received prizes from the Ann Arbor Film Festival and the Onion City Festival. They were just awarded the Aliant New Media Prize for their project A Year in the Life of the World, which will be completed in 2007. They are currently at work on a new tape entitled Little Canada.

Emily Vey Duke received her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and completed her Masters at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She then worked for a year as Artistic Director at the Khyber Centre for the Arts in Halifax, NS.

Cooper Battersby received his diploma in computer programming at Okanagan College, and completed his Masters at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was the recipient of a Canada Council Production Grant in 2001. Duke and Battersby are currently teaching at Syracuse University in Central New York.