Ain't She Sweet

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These experimental films look at historical and contemporary perceptions of women, exploring the effects of media, advertising and other popular culture. The films questions whether images and text from magazines and advertisements sells an illusion, destroys self esteem and encourage us to be someone else or a 'better' version of ourselves. 

I Died for Beauty was selected for SVOX.TV Film and Video Arts channel in 2020.

Credits  

Music (collage animation): Peter Richards

Girls will be Girls, an experimental documentary film, explores female stereotypes through the retelling of girlhood stories. In the film, four mature women, discuss their expectations and behaviours of girls growing into womanhood in Great Britain, looking at how they should act, speak, dress, and conduct themselves. Using archival footage and oral histories, the film playfully explores the pressures to conform to certain behaviours and beliefs, discussing appearance, school, friendships, relationships with boys, family, and career opportunities. Clips were sourced from a range of archival footage at the East Anglian Film Archive and juxtaposed with the spoken audio. 

The film was originally created for the 2019 East Anglian Film Archive mash-up competition under the theme Discovery. The film screened at the FaB Festival, Margate Film Festival and SVOX.TV Film and Video Arts channel.

In the installation, over 50 dolls were sprayed, and hand-painted in designs inspired by bondage outfits. At first, the figures are seen as vulnerable decorative, unconscious, and desired objects, exposed, and restricted in patriarchal thought. However, in this unsettling world, the dolls command their own authority.

Inspired by the book Living Doll: the Return of Sexism by Natasha Walter and the paraphrase by George Orwell, From Girl to Doll reflects on the symbol of the doll, as a plaything, a female form to aspire to become and/or a sexual object of desire. The work looks at the fusion of the girl and doll, exploring a hypersexualised world where the pressures and desires to become sexually attractive start at a young age.

Amongst the hanging objects, a distorted film of selected archival footage, plays in the background, showing the first Barbie commercial. 

The installation was shown at LAC's group art exhibition, Weight and See, at the Undercroft Gallery, Norwich.

'I wanted to create an immersive experience, by introducing inanimate objects that represent the female form into an uncomfortable and eerie world, that challenges our perceptions of female objectification but at the same time claims female authority'.

Llywelyn the Last retells the story of the last Welsh Prince of Wales through a silhouette animation, which is screened on the dungeon walls of Chirk Castle. The collage animation interpretes the story of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and his relationship with Roger Mortimer, the founder of Chirk Castle, as well as the rift between the Welsh and English. 

The animation was produced by Kate Hulme Ltd and commissioned by the National Trust.

Credits

Music by Peter Richards.