contemporary video

2023

Cinematography & Editor: Helena Öhman

Sound Design: Rob Bentall (to be produced)

In 2019 the surviving Tiller Girls, representing many different generations of dancers, met up for a reunion in Blackpool—a key home of the troupe. I went along with Helena Öhman, to record the event and talk to the women.

The footage of the event shows glamorous older women, posing, chatting, laughing, negotiating one another, reliving memories, and showing me how to link arms as a Tiller Girl.

Interposed text highlights speech, emphasising the insights and opinions that develop and challenge earlier video works. Black and white archival footage of filmed theatre performances depict Tiller Girl dances giving visual descriptions to pair with the stories.

2021

Still from *Modernity / Power*
Video, 12.50 mins
Made from appropriated backstage musical Hollywood films made between 1929 and 1940, *Modernity / Power* reframes latent power dynamics on the screen through text interventions and foley sound–clips, clicks, clapping, tap-dancing, and breathing. These disruptions draw attention to the labour of the bodies performing and their incredible skills.

*Pose and Shadow, Alexandra Danilova*
Watercolour on A4 watercolour 300gsm paper

2012

Scene 5 web — **Scene 5 / Dancing in Front of Artwork by Dale Holmes,** **2012**
Video, 7 minutes

The fifth ‘Scene’ in *The Artist,* a compilation of five scenes of dancing in my studio.

2011

Scene 4 web — **Gaga Charleston, 2011**
Video, 4 mins 7 secs

The final ‘letter’ I sent to Kerstin Honeit, as part of our video dialogue ‘*Video Letters*‘. This later became Scene 4 of the ‘The Artist’, a collection of five videos dancing in my studio.

2018

2013

Scene 2 web — **Scene 2 / Dancing in Houston in Front of Artwork by Dale Holmes, 2013**
Video, 4 mins 4 secs

Hollywood Forever, SIA Gallery, 9th May 2014 – 25th May 2014

May 012014

I instigated a video show collaboratively curated with Megan Cotts, Alexis Hudgins, Ali Prosch & Brica Wilcox shown at SIA Gallery in May. The show featured ten video works by Alison J Carr, Alexis Hudgins, Ivan Iannoli, Julie Orser & Jon Irving, Ali Prosch, Elleni Sclaventis, Matt Siegle, amy von harrington, Brica Wilcox, that respond to the provocation of Hollywood Forever: the dream, the film industry, the cemetery on Santa Monica Boulevard. Each takes a different approach to Hollywood—from considering the myth, the geography, the surplus of images it gives us, the imperative to perform, the seduction and the make-believe.

More information about the project Hollywood Forever Bios.

image credit Julie Orser & Jon Irving, from The Viewer

You Me You Me You Me

Feb 182014

I’ve put together a selection of videos to be screened at S1 Artspace, Thu 20 Feb, 6 – 8pm:

S1 Artspace is pleased to present You Me You Me You Me, a screening of six short video works which will be followed by a discussion between artists Alison J Carr and Lindsay Foster.

In this screening, S1 Studio Holder, Alison J Carr, selected Lindsay Foster’s The Last Frontier as a starting point alongside which she presents four additional works: Notes on You and Me by Alexis Hudgins, The Pulse of Madame K by Isabella Streffen, Nadia by Katy Woods, and her own A Response to Unmastered by Katherine Angel; inviting Foster to select a final piece to sit alongside her own: Making A Past Present by Stephanie Owens.

The videos take different approaches to reflect on personal experiences and collective memories, on images and language and how we find ourselves formed through our encounters with culture. Across the selection are witty, playful observations as well as sincere enquiries. What is it to be a person?

Alexis Hudgins, Notes on You and Me, 2010 — **Alexis Hudgins, Notes on You & Me,** **2010**