Dancing Chainmail

Experimenting with theatrical lighting resulted in this video being filmed by photographer Elisabeth Smith.

My thanks to all who helped to make this video.

For this collaboration I wrote this in October 2021

“I’m currently studying for a BA (Hons) degree in textiles and I’m in my final year. I would identify as a storyteller. My current textile project began from an assignment called Working From Artefacts and I chose to look at Bob Williams, my late father-in-law’s 5 WW2 medals. On researching his war service as aircraftman in the RAF, he would have serviced Bristol Beaufighter planes. This led to a fascination with WW2 fighter planes. Living in Kent, we had a lot of Spitfire planes flying overhead during lockdown and these beautiful planes made me want to find out more about them.

During WW2 Lord Beaverbrook, Minister of Aircraft Production, started a campaign to raise money for the war effort and the Spitfire Fund was created. Along with cash donations, households were encouraged to recycle their aluminium pots and pans for smelting. Donations ranging from pocket money pennies to king's ransoms eventually raised about £13m (£650m at modern values). Recycling aluminium from drinks cans became my link to Spitfires and my research into Bob’s life story uncovered that he had worked in the Aluminium Factory in Dolgarrog, North Wales in the early 1950s. My link to working with aluminium and Bob had come full circle, but how could I justify working with aluminium within the realms of a textiles degree?

Making samples using traditional stitch and aluminium moved onto joining aluminium discs with wire and my curiosity with the light reflections and rustling sound made by my larger contemporary chainmail was ignited. Wanting to capture the movement of my aluminium art and connect to the graceful movement of the fighter planes in flight, my idea was to use a dancer. I made some initial videos of a ballet dancer wearing my ‘chainmail’ using my iPhone. The graceful balletic movements of the dancer and the artwork paid homage to the beautiful Spitfire planes flying in the sky.

The initial videos demonstrated the movement and sound of the aluminium and was my evidence that metal can be considered a material to be used in textile art. I then wanted to experiment further with professional lighting but I didn’t have the correct knowledge or equipment to facilitate this. This idea was the start of collaborative working. In asking about the possibility of a collaboration with an OCA student, I was lucky enough to have Elisabeth Smith on board with my idea. After chatting about wanting to experiment with professional stage lighting, Elisabeth confirmed that she would like to collaborate with me.

For the collaboration I confirmed a convenient date for all involved and hired the Gulbenkian Theatre on the University of Kent campus in Canterbury for 2 hours. Our collaboration involved myself, Elisabeth, Kate (my dancer who also choreographed the dance) and my daughter Carys who had previously worked as a lighting technician in the Gulbenkian.

At the time of writing, I am delighted with some initial photographs Elisabeth has sent to me. I have asked Elisabeth to produce some videos for me and these will form part of my degree exhibition show in 2022.”

Elisabeth wrote:

“I am currently studying a BA (Hons) in Photography at Level 2. At this point in our studies we are expected to experiment more with different ideas and collaborations with other artists is one way of pushing ourselves creatively.

When Bev asked me whether I would collaborate with her on her final degree project I was really excited. To start with, I really love Bev’s aluminium work and wanted to support her with developing her idea. Also over the past year I have been experimenting with video, aside from my stills photography, so videoing Bev's work was a great opportunity to learn more skills. Not only would I be part of a creative team, I would also be videoing in low light conditions. For my previous course I had written about artificial light in the landscape and worked on a final assignment photographing Christmas lights, so this collaboration ticked a number of boxes for me.

Our collaboration on the day went really well, everyone had a role to play which they did perfectly but then credit to Bev who directed us well. I learnt a lot about my skills both as a videographer and a photographer, and I was definitely pushed out of my comfort zone at times. I managed to successfully problem solve on the day but had also prepared beforehand by making sure I had a Plan B for anything that went wrong with plan A.

The next step now is to work with Bev to develop the video outcome, to make sure she has what she needs for her degree project.”