PANEL DISCUSSION: Monday 23 March, 19:00–20:30
Somerset House, Screening Room, South Wing
This panel will ask what role fashion films can play in critically reflecting on fashion and media practices. Can they help generate debate and affect social and cultural change? What is their relevance within the wider visual culture? Focusing above all on questions of representation and identity within the domains of fashion and art, we will consider how fashion films and artist performances of fashion in film have challenged persistent fashion stereotypes. We will look at how some fashion image-makers have called into question the often one-dimensional portrayals of gender, sexuality, beauty, age and ethnic identity, and what their re-articulations mean in the context of today’s fashion.
Chair:
Nathalie Khan lectures in fashion history and cultural studies at University of the Arts London, Sotheby’s, NYU and The University of Bologna. She is a theorist and writer on contemporary fashion with a focus on new media and technologies, and has published articles on these subjects in publications including Fashion Theory, Vestoj and Fashion, Film and Consumption.
Panellists:
Kathryn Ferguson is a film director, curator and research fellow at London College of Fashion. She makes films for clients including Chloé, Lady Gaga and Dazed Digital. Her work has featured in film festivals and group exhibitions including the 59th Berlinale and OneDotZero. She consults for the British Council and the British Fashion Council. In 2014 she was appointed Selfridges Filmmaker in Residence.
Pamela Church Gibson is Reader in Cultural and Historical Studies at London College of Fashion where she founded the Fashion and Film MA programme in 2008. She is the principal editor of the peer-reviewed journal Film, Fashion & Consumption and has co-edited Fashion Cultures and More Dirty Looks: Gender, Pornography and Power. Her recent book Fashion & Celebrity Culture explores complex new relationships between celebrities and contemporary media.
Anat Ben-David is a London-based sound and performance artist and since 2002 a member of the art group Chicks On Speed. She has staged numerous performances internationally, on which she has collaborated with musicians, fashion designers and artists. She has shown at venues including Stanley Picker Gallery, Tate Britain, ICA, MoMA, Migros Museum of Contemporary Art, Zürich and Momak Kyoto.
Jessica Mitrani is a New York-based artist who uses film and performance to investigate how the social and aesthetic construction of femininity shapes identities. Her video Headpieces for Peace won the Grand Prix at the 2012 ASVOFF5 Festival at Centre Pompidou, Paris. Last year, she received a grant from the Hermès Foundation for her immersive film and performance work Traveling Lady.
Jennifer Byrne is Head of Video at Dazed Group Ltd, working across major titles including Dazed & Confused and AnOther. She is responsible for commissioning and producing editorial content across a variety of video channels on Dazed Digital including a weekly documentary strand Doc X and hero video programme ‘Visionaries’. She has collaborated with Warp Records, James Franco, Mark Cousins, Maison Martin Margiela and others.
Tickets £10/£8, booking info: somersethouse.org.uk