Speaking Aloud / Conversation’s Over: Feminist Self-Portraits and Autobiographical Experiments at the Barbican
Barbican Cinema
Saturday 28th February 2026 || 16.00
Two newly digitised tapes from the LCVA act as the creative catalyst for this programme that explores different modes of feminist self-representation.
The programme begins with two works from the London Community Video Archive (LCVA): Conversation’s Over: Liz & Pauline (c 1980) by the Basement Project and Terry Flaxton’s Circumstantial Evidence (1983) which are placed in dialogue with moving-image works by Utako Koguchi, Chick Strand, CAMP and Yace Sula. The film examines how history can be mediated through autobiography.
The self-portrait film does not speak with a single voice but with many, through the deliberate use of fiction, overlapping voices, and dialogue. Conversation becomes a way of voicing one’s reality to both oneself and others, while diaristic filmmaking imagines new modes for authorship.
These films are as much about introspection as they are about exchange, creating a space where the wish to be seen meets the urge to see and record others.
Programme:
Conversation’s Over/Liz & Pauline, dir Basement Project (LCVA), 1980, 21’, UK (captioned)
Circumstantial Evidence, dir Terry Flaxton (LCVA), 1983, 21’, UK
Mujer De Milfuegos, dir Chick Strand, 1976, 15’, USA/Mexico, 16mm
Excerpts from Khirkeeyaan: Village Girls, dir CAMP, 2006, 9’ India
As Told by a Corpse, dir Yace Sula, 2025, 6’, USA (UK Premiere)
A Dandelion [Rosaceae], dir. Utako Koguchi, 1990, 8', Japan
