Triptychs #1

Triptychs #1

Suzanne Smith - Brenda Miller - Sarah Harbridge

Café Ollo, The Media Centre, 7 Northumberland Street, Huddersfield

February – April 2016

Triptychs is a biannual film screening programme showing 3 selected works simultaneously on 3 parallel screens, curated by Alice Bradshaw.

For the inaugural screening 'Triptychs #1' the three selected films present reflective moments in time alluding to birth-life-death cycles. The films are looped alongside each other, repeating at their own rate. This looping is also played out in the cyclic nature of the film subjects and interwoven references they contain.

Smith's film is a short, playful film that condenses major life choices and repercussions into 10 seconds, ambiguously tongue in cheek, that is reminiscent of internet meme culture. Miller's film is a looped tracking shot of the artist that reflects on the historically conjoined activities of knitting and walking for us to draw comparisons. Harbridge's film is a meandering camera pan that echoes Miller's walk as well as portraying antiquated, yet preserved, subject matters. Harbridge's text overlay on the film mirrors Smith's and draws attention to the textural objects presented in the film.

All three films have no audio track and indeed Harbridge's film investigates silence in her work. Instead of audio to follow, we can follow the camera and/or the text on screen. The films can be dipped in and out of in any order – there is not a prescribed order to view the selection – more so a reflective meander through them at your own pace may be best fitting.

Suzanne Smith - Untitled (10 seconds) (2013)
00:10

'Untitled (10 seconds)' is a short, silent text film made by the artist in lieu of a five year plan.

Suzanne Smith was born in Nottinghamshire in 1974. She graduated in Fine Art Sculpture at Manchester School of Art in 2007 and went on to read for a masters in cultural theory and gender at Lancaster University. She has exhibited nationally and internationally including Squeaky Wheel (NY) and a solo show at Art-Gene in Barrow, with other recent platforms including a listening gallery of interesting noises and an orangery in Clapham. Smith currently teaches art in the North West. She lives and works in Manchester.

http://www.suzannesmith.me/

Brenda Miller – Walking (2013)
00:58

In the film 'Walking' the artist is reflecting on the motion of knitting historically as a necessity reminiscent of what would have been needed in the past. Camera & Sound: Alistair Campbell, Josh Randall. Special thanks to the Engine Room, Bridgewater, for their support with post-production.

Brenda Miller lives in Gloucestershire. She graduated in Creative Textiles at Bath Spa University in 1996 and received her MFA in Art Practice in 2009 from Goldsmiths College, University of London. She has shown moving image, textiles and installation in the UK, Europe and USA. Miller is interested in the historical representation of art through textiles, its links to craft and domesticity and its relationship to current practice. She collaborates with both professional and amateur women to create documentary style films.

http://www.axisweb.org/artist/brendamiller

Sarah Harbridge - Silent (2015)
03:28

'Silent' is one film from a series the artist is making in a room in the house where her family have lived since 1961 (the year after she was born). This room is a 19th century addition to a house built in 1780. So since a very small child she has been witness to nearly a third of the different states, uses and events of the room. For Harbridge, there are clusters of significance of time periods, activities, objects and people no longer there: certain objects and fixtures remain. In 'Silent', remaining objects have a specific area of meanings, time period, culture and personal. The hand held camera is moved with difficulty as she attempt to track surfaces with a macro lens and keep within the few millimetres of a very narrow focal field.

Sarah Harbridge was born in Dudley, West Midlands in 1960. She lived in London and Devon for 6 years then returned to childhood location. Harbridge studied Fine Art at Middlesex Polytechnic and University of Wolverhampton. She has shown moving image, text and performance work in the UK, Europe and USA. Her current work combines physical remnants with slightly humorous interpretations of distant and recent remembrances. She has three grown up children and two cats.

https://sarahharbridgerobinson.wordpress.com/

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