Mass Observation Artist

I have been invited to make an artwork in response to the Mass Observation Archives, based at the University of Sussex in Brighton. I plan to make a film about observation with an original piano score that I am composing. This work will hopefully be exhibited at the Jubilee Library, Brighton in May 2010, as part of the conference, 'New Perspective on Mass Observation'. For more information about Mass Observation please visit their website: www.massobs.org.uk

Artist Residency: Mansfield Road Community Centre, Essex

I am currently artist in residence at Mansfield Road Community Centre for People with Mental Health Difficulties, based in Ilford, Essex. I am working in collaboration with the Community Centre’s Music Group that takes place weekly, making a short film about their experiences and the music they make. Service users are working with me in the making of the film, including camera operation, voice over and creative direction. The film produced will be screened at the Centre, uploaded onto the Community Centre website and DVDs will be made for all involved. For more information please visit: www.mansfieldroad.org.uk

Video Screening in Bristol 17 October 2009

Two of my video works have been selected to be part of 'You and Your Work 7', a contemporary performance showcase taking place in Bristol at the Easton Community Centre in assocaiation with 'The Cube'. This event is curated by Sylvia Rimat, Jo Bannon and Ray White and will take place on the 17.10.09 from 5pm - 11pm. There will be lots of exciting new work to see so please come along! You can visit the blog about the event at: http://www.youandyourwork.blogspot.com/

Reunion (2009, UK)

I have just finished editing my new short film, 'Reunion'.

In December 2008 I visited my parents in Lancashire. They have been married for 37 years and have rarely spent time apart. In this film they try to imagine that they have not seen each other for a very long time, and how it would be to have a long-awaited reunion. Filmed on location at Cureden Valley, Lancs.

© Kate Rowles. 2009

The Camera Points...

Yesterday I happened upon some wonderful home video footage of a colleague of mine, filmed by his young son. The boy had followed a common theme within the genre: a guided tour of his house. Below is an extract of selected text from the video:

There's my playground
Here are some bananas
This is my dad, that's his eyes, that's his nose, that's his mouth, that's his ear.
Here's my brother, here's my mum.
These are my fish, as you can see.

(Brother asks)
What are you doing?

(Boy answers)
I'm making a film.

Photography of Performance

My skills as a photographer are increasingly drawing me to document events and performance works of my friends and peers. In May 2009 I am due to do the photography for a wedding. In January 2009 I documented Kings of England's performance, 'Where We Live and What We Live For' at London's Battersea Arts Centre. To see these images visit:

http://bowesandsondocuments.blogspot.com/

In February 2009 I documented 'Living Structure's' Carte Macabre performance at The Shunt at London Bridge, see:

http://www.livingstructures.co.uk/index.html (images unavailable at present).

I am happy to be contacted should you require a photographer to document your event / performance.

The Small Time: Make Film not Fame!

Home Video is a free-style genre, a hybrid form of film that is generally not acknowledged in Film Studies or the history of Film with a capital 'F' because it is not 'official'. It is made by people who are not experts in their field. It is an amateur's game. So let us make of it what we want, and let us call for the recognition and acknowledgement of our small time productions.

Popular film and television conventions have certainly influenced the way Home Video is made by YOU the general public, but to what extent is questionable. (What usually happens when someone you know picks up a camera?) Bringing a video camera into an everyday context, a personal context, changes the way people behave, and witnessing the overcoming of that 'camera-freeze' is part of the beauty of home video. Building confidence is part of it.


My mission with the Home Video Series is to document family life in an unconventional way, a poetic way, a brave way. I focus on my relationship with my parents because it is the most important relationship in my life. I owe them my life and now I try to make sense of it. I strive to be playful and varied, to allow duration and repetition to reveal the similarities and differences, connections and idiosyncrasies that exist within and between us family members. I consider the work to be a form of art, of documentary operating outside of traditional documentary conventions, involving sequences of performed actions in the context of 'real-life' relationships.

Influences include filmmakers such as Kieslowski, Jean-Luc Godard, Tarkovsky, Terence Davies and Duane Hopkins.

© Kate Rowles. 2009