"Honey I'm Home!" Live at Nuit Blanche, Toronto, 2011
By Nicole Bazuin, Sarah Eagen and Cheryl Hsu
In partnership with Wendy Cukier, James Warrack
Produced by Ryerson University's Diversity Institute & School of Image Arts
“Honey I’m Home!” - was presented as part of a contemporary art festival in Toronto conceived, produced and evaluated by a team lead by three young female artists with the support of an extensive team of professionals and volunteers. The interactive film installation enabled the audience to co-create episodes of a situational comedy (sit com) by playing the role of “father” regardless of race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or age in an effort to disrupt both the genre of sit com as well as the stereotypical notions of “family” (social goals), on a fully cost recovery sustainable basis (economic goals) while engaging the audience and breaking new ground (artistic goals). The production involved more than 50 professional and volunteer artists, screenwriters, writers, musicians, film editors, designers, technicians, stage crew, actors and others and engaged more than 60 audience members in 60 five minute film episodes created during a 12 hour exhibition period which was attended by more than 500 viewers.
Nuit Blanche guests of all genders, ages, cultural backgrounds and sexual orientations were invited to fill in this missing father role of this original stereotypical sitcom during the night of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2011. The Nuit Blanche guest was filmed in the partial TV studio set visible behind a glass façade while the live footage was inserted into pre-taped episodes of Honey I'm Home! and projected to the audience outside – confronting the viewers with an unusually cast ‘father' in a traditional sitcom family.
Watch the Trailer for "Honey I'm Home"