Fonds 49 - Gillian Darling Kovanic fonds

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Title proper

Gillian Darling Kovanic fonds

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  • Sound recording
  • Digital Media

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  • Source of title proper: The title is based on the creator of the fonds.

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Fonds

Reference code

49

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Physical description

129 cm textual records
ca. 1500 photographs: col. slides
ca. 2500 photographs: negatives
39 audio cassettes
14 optical discs
3 watercolours

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Archival description area

Name of creator

Biographical history

Gillian Darling Kovanic began an undergraduate degree in anthropology in 1968 at Simon Fraser University. In August of that year, Kovanic left Simon Fraser University and spent most of 1969 – 1970 hitchhiking and travelling around the world, including stops in the United States, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, India, South East Asia and Japan. Upon her return to Canada in 1970, Kovanic transferred to the University of British Columbia where she began a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Anthropology, focusing on South Asia, and minors in Museology and Art History. She completed this degree in 1975.

Kovanic began her Master’s degree at the University of British Columbia in South Asian Anthropology in 1975, finishing in 1979. During this period she completed a year of field work (1976 – 1977) in the Hindi Kush (Kafiristan and Nuristan, Afghanistan) for her Master’s thesis titled, “Merit Feasting Amongst the Kalash of Northern Pakistan.” During this time in Afghanistan and Pakistan she collected ethnographic materials, which now reside with the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).

In 1979, Kovanic returned to India as a Shastri Indo-Canadian scholar studying the Oriya language in Orissa state. She returned to Canada in 1981 and from 1983 – 1985 completed a diploma in Media Arts and Sciences in the Media Resources Department at Capilano College. Upon completion of this diploma, Kovanic joined Northern Lights Entertainment as a film producer and director. She worked as an independent film maker from 1985 – 1997 and joined the National Film Board of Canada from 1997 – 2001, before returning to her work as an independent film maker with her company Tamarin Productions Inc.

Kovanic’s film career has been widely successful, earning accolades at film festivals around the world for films such as Island of Whales (1990), Battle for the Trees (1993) Through a Blue Lens (2000) and Suspino: A Cry for Roma (2003). Her films have been nominated for many awards, including Gemini Awards, one of which she won for Island of Whales in 1992, the Golden Sheaf Awards and the British Columbia Leo Awards. On many of these projects Kovanic works as director, writer, producer and location sound editor.

Custodial history

Scope and content

This fonds consists of textual records, photographs, negatives, slides, audio recordings, compact discs and video on DVD that relate to Kovanic’s academic and film career. The fonds relates especially to her work in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, but also captures her work with First Nations on the Northwest coast of British Columbia.

Notes area

Physical condition

All negatives and photographs have been removed from their original plastic sleeves, placed in new plastic sleeves and put in acid free boxes. The academic articles have been removed from their plastic sleeves, separated and placed in archival folders.

Immediate source of acquisition

Material was donated to the Museum of Anthropology by Gillian Darling Kovanic in 2011.

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Script of material

Language and script note

Some of the field notes are written in Kalash’a with phonetic translations included in the fonds.

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No further donations are expected.

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Copied from MemoryBC by Katie Ferrante on 18 November 2015.
Finding aid attached December 8, 2015

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