GIRLS (2014)
Featuring Vea McBride, Jessica Burns, Brittany Tutton and Taylor Dern
Artist/Director Kate Blackmore
Cinematographer Bonnie Elliott
Sound Design & Mix Fred Rodrigues
Documentary Short, 21mins
Finalist/Special Mention – Australian Shorts Award, Antenna Film Festival, Sydney
Official Selection – NAFA International Ethnographic Film Festival, Bergen
This project was commissioned by Campbelltown Art Centre as part of ‘The List’ (2014), an exhibition curated by Megan Monte.
Girls is a dual screen video installation which centres on four fourteen year old girls growing up in Claymore, a public housing estate in Sydney’s South West. In a research paper published by Griffith University in 2008, Claymore is described as “the most disadvantaged community in Australia” due to its high rates of crime, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, teenage pregnancy and intergenerational welfare dependency. Through interviews, observation and performative reenactments, Blackmore exposes the specific attitudes and behaviours the girls have developed as a way of surviving within their stigmatised community.