Laura Edith Guy

“There is ectoplasm in the air”

Extract: The curtain is drawn, and the projector is switched on. There is a whirring sound, and the door closes as though by itself. In this sealed vessel one of the participants swims in to focus; she is immersed in an aperture of light.

Click here for the full version of my contribution for the Jane Arden Project.

The publication will be presented at London College of Communication on June 3rd 2010, and will be launched later this year with a further exhibition. It is supported by the BFI.

Jane Arden Project

Newport Transporter Bridge No. 1 / Far shore and Newport Transporter Bridge No. 2 / Near shore, 2010

Images from the forthcoming Jane Arden Project. In Arden’s ‘The Other Side of the Underneath’ the lead character crosses the river on the Newport Transporter Bridge to be taken for psychiatric treatment. Within the film landscape is often used to represent one woman’s descent into, or her being within, madness, with the crossing of the river signaling journey from the exterior experience of pyschic life into the accepted and institution bound experience of madness.

Jane Arden Project

Still from the Other Side of the Underneath, Dir. Jane Arden, 1972.

Jane Arden was, amongst other things, a film director, actor, screenwriter, and poet. Following her death in 1982 her creative output has failed to achieve deserved recognition amongst that of her peers. As one of the only female directors producing feature length films during the 1970s this near omission from the history of radical cinema is a concern that needs be urgently reassessed.

Excerpt from the Jane Arden Project:

By asking women artists to respond to the viewing of two of her films, Separation and The Other Side of the Underneath, the Jane Arden Project aims to draw attention, not only to Arden’s work, but the influence and stimulus her work is able to bring to a new generation of artists, writers and filmmakers.

The project is lead by artist and activist Charlotte Procter and will culminate in a limited edition artist bookwork and accompanying exhibition, which will include my own contribution amongst others including the work of Elaine Tierney, Susanne Bürner, Mia Clarke, and Sophie Brown. The project is supported by the BFI.