The Universal Schoolgirl — Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh and Jerwood Project Space London, 2016
This performance was commissioned for The Scottish Endarkenment: Art and Unreason 1945 -Present, Dovecot Studios. It was performed several times during the exhibition and as part of the Edinburgh Festival, running May – August 2016. It was also performed for the Jerwood Staging Series – Blend the Acclaim of your Chant with the Timbrels, curated by George Vasey, London, July 2016. Image credit: Hydar Dewachi www.hydardewachi.com.
The work investigated how the imaging of the female form in a modernist Scottish novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, heavily grounded in an idea of Enlightenment and progressive education, could relate to visions of the female now within contemporary modes of representation, as mediated by computer interfaces and digital materiality.
Hello, allow me to introduce myself. I am 45 yrs old. I have a large family. I am a teacher. An art teacher. And I have a studio in my attic where I create portraits from pupils. In fact I have become somewhat of an authority on Schoolgirls. Images of whom you see before you…
One day I would like to do all you girls, one by one and then all together. It would be nice to do you all together and see what sort of a group portrait I could make of you.
So sweet – the flesh of the neck if only this could be bottled and sold across the counter! Little girl …schoolgirl….devil
Believe what I am telling you.
You aren’t quite at a stage for looking at.
