Ain't She Sweet
A collection of films and installation, 2017, 2019, 2022
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
From Girl to Doll
Film & Installation, 2022
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'.
Hysterical Females
Film, 2017
During her MA, Tracy Satchwill explored the narratives of suffragettes, focusing on a different perspective, that looked at the discrimination against Edwardian women in general.
In Hysterical Females, the protagonist is subjected to discrimination through the eyes of a politician, a husband and a dowager. The film refers to historical behaviours, attitudes and beliefs, bringing the story into a contemporary surreal world.
The film was screened at the Ilfracombe Film Festival and other venues, coinciding with the celebrations of the centenary of women's suffrage in 2018.
Further Text
Esther, a young, curious but naïve woman in Edwardian times, explores a visually inviting but uncomfortable world where there’s a struggle between power and freedom. In this domineering patriarchal society women are treated as victims and represented as automated, unconscious and desired objects. This world is a conflation of the Surrealist’s notion of convulsive beauty with Freud’s the uncanny. Men are the masterful creators and women dismembered, punched and severed art objects. Their owners devour their soul and body, empowering the right of habeas corpus, resulting in the woman becoming an animated inanimate human. The protagonist is a living doll, a fusion between a toy and a young woman (Walter 2010, p2), converted into an uncanny animated lifeless object. She is an effigy ready to be damaged and destroyed. Although the era is based over 100 years ago, thoughts and feelings of women are revealed from both yesteryear and today, posing questions about the similarities of attitudes, identities and desires. However this world isn’t only controlled by men but also by outdated influential women that prod and manipulate innocent girls. This figure is both powerful and controlling in this disturbing anti-utopian society. The narrative is part reality and part fantasy, being both disruptive and disjointed, with an emergence of the relevance and irrelevant. A rebellion, a radical change is required to overcome and deconstruct the oppositions and boundaries of the patriarchal thought. The appearance of an angel signifies entering another world. Her function is of prophecy, communication and guidance (Allmer 2009, p.12). She is a suffragette, a savour of the women of today.
Allmer, P. (2009) Angels of anarchy: women artists and surrealism. Munich; London: Prestel. Walter, N., (2010) Living Doll: The Return of Sexism. London: Virago Press.
Llywelyn the Last
Collage animation, 2019
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.