Animation shorts:
States of Emergence
Saturday 31 May, 15:00
Rio Cinema
Full duration: 60min
What does a body look like when it is turned inside out? And perfume, when materialised as a woodland substratum of abundant growth and decay? Might a plastic bag (arguably the most popular, if unwanted, fashion accessory) possess feelings and agency? Operating at the edges of reality and fantasy, serenity and grotesqueness, this programme harnesses animation as a language through which to express complex ideas about the entanglements of fashion and nature. Showcasing a variety of techniques, the films attend to moments in which physical bodies, plants and inanimate things push against and mould into each other. Through relentless adaptation and transformation, the films highlight the aliveness of both bodies and things, their shared nature as matter. Fashion here is conceptualised not only as the body’s textile covering but, more expansively, as its malleable surface.
With thanks to Ruth Lingford.
Wonderwood (2010)
22 Light Years (2021)
Asparagus (1979)
Flora (1989)
Plastic Bag (2020)
Moth (2019)
There is a Garden in My Head (1987)
Trembled Blossoms (2008)
Asparagus
USA, 1979. Dir. Suzan Pitt, 17min. English.Working across a spectrum of artistic media, Suzan Pitt also made a significant mark as a fashion designer, most notably through her hand-painted coats (first introduced in 1984), which brimmed with bold graphic imagery inspired by her film and art works. Pitt’s preoccupation with dress and adornment is vividly explored in her film Asparagus, now recognised as a landmark animation for its portrayal of womanhood and femininity as surreal and always in a state of transformation. The film centres on a faceless woman whose domestic environment becomes a stage for constant metamorphosis. Here natural motifs appear as adornments – asparagus serving as jewellery, floral patterns decorating her garments – while she moves through spaces where the organic and the inorganic intersect.
22 Light Years
USA, 2021. Dir. Janie Geiser, 13.5min.Janie Geiser’s digital animation is a fluid but hauntingly elusive meditation on home and memory. A flickering collage emerges, in which landscapes, architectural walls and bodily surfaces are shaped and textured through photographic negatives, found patterned papers, flower seed packets, diagrams, home design software and archival footage. Patterns and three-dimensional objects and natural forms-turned-images drape over spaces and memories, suggesting a fashion that not only mimics but also, more radically, merges with the organic world.
Flora
Czechia, 1989. Dir. Jan Švankmajer, 1min.Working across a spectrum of artistic media, Suzan Pitt also made a significant mark as a fashion designer, most notably through her hand-painted coats (first introduced in 1984), which brimmed with bold graphic imagery inspired by her film and art works. Pitt’s preoccupation with dress and adornment is vividly explored in her film Asparagus, now recognised as a landmark animation for its portrayal of womanhood and femininity as surreal and always in a state of transformation. The film centres on a faceless woman whose domestic environment becomes a stage for constant metamorphosis. Here natural motifs appear as adornments – asparagus serving as jewellery, floral patterns decorating her garments – while she moves through spaces where the organic and the inorganic intersect.
Plastic Bag
USA, 2020. Dir. Robin Frohardt, 7min 32sec.In Plastic Bag, artist Robin Frohardt follows the journey of a lone, mundane plastic bag from the present day into the far-off future. This charming, witty animation is crafted entirely from cardboard and brought to life with handmade sets and lo-fi special effects. Rather than eliciting moral outrage about the bag’s existence, the film portrays its enduring presence in our world through a poignant and imaginative ode of sorts. Featuring original music by Freddi Price, Frohardt’s tactile animation and whimsical storytelling invite viewers to reflect on the lasting impact of everyday objects.
Moth
USA, 2019. Dir. Allison Schulnik, 3 min 15 sec. Allison Schulnik’s hand-painted animation traces the metamorphosis of a moth through vivid, dreamlike transformations. The film’s imagery suggests that the moth’s wings and body are like ever-changing costumes, adorned with patterns that mimic both natural forms and the textures of fabric. As the creature morphs between shapes, nature and fashion converge on its surface, with each change resembling the act of donning a new, fantastical garment woven from the raw materials of life.
There is a Garden in My Head
Netherlands, 1987. Dir. Jacques Verbeek, Karin Wiertz, 4min.This experimental short film features a female figure whose body is adorned with slide projections of flowers and animals, as if her skin is a living canvas for nature’s patterns. Her naked form becomes a site where fashion and flora merge, with floral motifs projected onto her as both clothing and tattoo. The film’s DIY aesthetic and layered imagery reveal the body itself as a kind of a garden, a place where nature and artificial adornments coexist.
Trembled Blossoms
USA, 2008. Dir. James Lima, 4min 47sec.We end with another fashion film, this time one commissioned by Prada at a time when major fashion brands were still largely bypassing online moving image as a viable marketing or creative vehicle. Trembled Blossoms is based on the ink drawings of illustrator James Jean, whom Prada initially approached in 2007 to make murals and illustrations for their Spring/Summer 2008 collection. In what was an expansion of this collaboration, director James Lima brought Jean’s floral motifs to life in a series of delicate, ‘slightly scandalous’ fantastical vignettes which play out to the soundtrack of Cocorosie. The film’s landscapes, nymphs, and blossoms dissolve and reform, their parts and surfaces echoing the patterns of Prada’s fabrics and wallpapers. Here, the natural beauty of flowers is inseparable from fashion as man-made body covering: flower petals become textiles, and textiles become petals.
Wonderwood
UK, 2010. Dir. Brothers Quay, 3min.Commissioned for a Comme des Garçons fragrance launch, Wonderwood by the Quay Brothers offers glimpses into a mystical world where marionettes and objects – half-alive, half-inanimate – navigate a labyrinth of shadows and mirrors. Using their trademark meticulously crafted stop-motion animation, the Quays conjure an atmospheric ‘wonder wood’ whose tactile, organic textures evoke the scent of cedar, cypress and sandalwood. As they themselves reflected: ‘Comme des Garçons gave us complete carte blanche. We would spray Wonderwood in the air and walk beneath its halo each day to animate. So yes, we were discreetly anointed by these twelve different woody notes from this cologne. We still wear it to this day.’ In this way, the film transforms the heady, invisible sensation of perfume into a lush, ever-changing material world where the lines between smell, sight and touch dissolve, and fragrance becomes a living, cinematic experience.
Asparagus
USA, 1979. Dir. Suzan Pitt, 17min. English.Working across a spectrum of artistic media, Suzan Pitt also made a significant mark as a fashion designer, most notably through her hand-painted coats (first introduced in 1984), which brimmed with bold graphic imagery inspired by her film and art works. Pitt’s preoccupation with dress and adornment is vividly explored in her film Asparagus, now recognised as a landmark animation for its portrayal of womanhood and femininity as surreal and always in a state of transformation. The film centres on a faceless woman whose domestic environment becomes a stage for constant metamorphosis. Here natural motifs appear as adornments – asparagus serving as jewellery, floral patterns decorating her garments – while she moves through spaces where the organic and the inorganic intersect.
22 Light Years
USA, 2021. Dir. Janie Geiser, 13.5min.Janie Geiser’s digital animation is a fluid but hauntingly elusive meditation on home and memory. A flickering collage emerges, in which landscapes, architectural walls and bodily surfaces are shaped and textured through photographic negatives, found patterned papers, flower seed packets, diagrams, home design software and archival footage. Patterns and three-dimensional objects and natural forms-turned-images drape over spaces and memories, suggesting a fashion that not only mimics but also, more radically, merges with the organic world.
Flora
Czechia, 1989. Dir. Jan Švankmajer, 1min.Working across a spectrum of artistic media, Suzan Pitt also made a significant mark as a fashion designer, most notably through her hand-painted coats (first introduced in 1984), which brimmed with bold graphic imagery inspired by her film and art works. Pitt’s preoccupation with dress and adornment is vividly explored in her film Asparagus, now recognised as a landmark animation for its portrayal of womanhood and femininity as surreal and always in a state of transformation. The film centres on a faceless woman whose domestic environment becomes a stage for constant metamorphosis. Here natural motifs appear as adornments – asparagus serving as jewellery, floral patterns decorating her garments – while she moves through spaces where the organic and the inorganic intersect.
Plastic Bag
USA, 2020. Dir. Robin Frohardt, 7min 32sec.In Plastic Bag, artist Robin Frohardt follows the journey of a lone, mundane plastic bag from the present day into the far-off future. This charming, witty animation is crafted entirely from cardboard and brought to life with handmade sets and lo-fi special effects. Rather than eliciting moral outrage about the bag’s existence, the film portrays its enduring presence in our world through a poignant and imaginative ode of sorts. Featuring original music by Freddi Price, Frohardt’s tactile animation and whimsical storytelling invite viewers to reflect on the lasting impact of everyday objects.
Moth
USA, 2019. Dir. Allison Schulnik, 3 min 15 sec. Allison Schulnik’s hand-painted animation traces the metamorphosis of a moth through vivid, dreamlike transformations. The film’s imagery suggests that the moth’s wings and body are like ever-changing costumes, adorned with patterns that mimic both natural forms and the textures of fabric. As the creature morphs between shapes, nature and fashion converge on its surface, with each change resembling the act of donning a new, fantastical garment woven from the raw materials of life.
There is a Garden in My Head
Netherlands, 1987. Dir. Jacques Verbeek, Karin Wiertz, 4min.This experimental short film features a female figure whose body is adorned with slide projections of flowers and animals, as if her skin is a living canvas for nature’s patterns. Her naked form becomes a site where fashion and flora merge, with floral motifs projected onto her as both clothing and tattoo. The film’s DIY aesthetic and layered imagery reveal the body itself as a kind of a garden, a place where nature and artificial adornments coexist.
Wonderwood
UK, 2010. Dir. Brothers Quay, 3min.Commissioned for a Comme des Garçons fragrance launch, Wonderwood by the Quay Brothers offers glimpses into a mystical world where marionettes and objects – half-alive, half-inanimate – navigate a labyrinth of shadows and mirrors. Using their trademark meticulously crafted stop-motion animation, the Quays conjure an atmospheric ‘wonder wood’ whose tactile, organic textures evoke the scent of cedar, cypress and sandalwood. As they themselves reflected: ‘Comme des Garçons gave us complete carte blanche. We would spray Wonderwood in the air and walk beneath its halo each day to animate. So yes, we were discreetly anointed by these twelve different woody notes from this cologne. We still wear it to this day.’ In this way, the film transforms the heady, invisible sensation of perfume into a lush, ever-changing material world where the lines between smell, sight and touch dissolve, and fragrance becomes a living, cinematic experience.
Trembled Blossoms
USA, 2008. Dir. James Lima, 4min 47sec.We end with another fashion film, this time one commissioned by Prada at a time when major fashion brands were still largely bypassing online moving image as a viable marketing or creative vehicle. Trembled Blossoms is based on the ink drawings of illustrator James Jean, whom Prada initially approached in 2007 to make murals and illustrations for their Spring/Summer 2008 collection. In what was an expansion of this collaboration, director James Lima brought Jean’s floral motifs to life in a series of delicate, ‘slightly scandalous’ fantastical vignettes which play out to the soundtrack of Cocorosie. The film’s landscapes, nymphs, and blossoms dissolve and reform, their parts and surfaces echoing the patterns of Prada’s fabrics and wallpapers. Here, the natural beauty of flowers is inseparable from fashion as man-made body covering: flower petals become textiles, and textiles become petals.