Art as a public service in the Canadian aporetic condition: the NFB, stylisation of experience, and national identity

In recent years, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has pioneered interactive media projects that foreground Canada’s unresolved identity tensions – an approach framed here as the ‘Canadian aporetic condition’. This article argues that Albert Murray’s concept of ‘stylisation of experience’ explains how these works translate complex histories into public forms that audiences can carry into civic life. Analysing five interactive NFB projects – Bear 71 , Circa 1948 , A Journal of Insomnia , Biidaaban: First Light , and The Space We Hold – alongside related works, the article demonstrates how layered narration, immersive form, and audience participation construct shared memory and ethical attention. The central claim is that a practice of ‘art as a public service’ at the NFB supports plural dialogue, keeps aporetic tensions visible, and strengthens democratic culture. Defined as an interdisciplinary field concept, the Canadian aporetic condition offers a transferable analytic for cultural criticism and geopolitical inquiry by naming how co-present claims – jurisdictional authority, resource governance, migration, digital borders, and memory – organise action in public life.