March 2015 – Expanded Animation

Strangelove Moving Image Festival, Mon 16^th March 2015: Women Hold Up Half The Sky

This 1-hour programme takes as its title a Mao-era propaganda slogan as a provocation to think about the status of women in China today relative to the past. These short, independent films by (all but one) female animators, many studying outside their native China, raise issues from contemporary China including personal identity, hormones and chemicals in factory production, the pressure of academic success, memory, the ties of family, abortion and the influence of pervasive computing.

Curated by Chunning Guo (Renmin University), Birgitta Hosea (CSM), Shelley Page (Dreamworks)

MA Character Animation, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London:
@CSMAnimation

Pinning Butterflies: this audience engagement project was created by BA Performance Design and Practice at Central Saint Martins with the Royal Albert Hall.

Animation (by First Year students on MA Character Animation at CSM), installation and performances on the themes of Pucini’s opera Madam Butterfly were installed to be walked through in the backstage area of the Royal Albert Hall. Four groups of visitors at a time were lead through loading bays, changing rooms, props areas, theatre corridors and catering spaces to experience a range of works including animated emotions, a life size chrysalis, provocative poetry in the lift and suicide by origami.

This one day event was designed to get the local community interested in the events at the Royal Albert Hall.