It’s process time! Hand developing the super 8mm film that has come back from the families for my @aceagrams funded project ‘ARTICLE 16’. I’m going to go through the steps of hand developing Super 8mm film in more depth, in case anyone is interested, but here’s a wee overview. Blindfold practicing loading my LOMO 8mm film developing tank! When I was a clapper loader (person who puts film in the big movie cameras and says scene 1, take 1, *snap*!) on film sets my boss use to send me to @procamtake2 warehouse to practice loading all the cameras that we might use and I would wear my shirt up over my eyes (to my boss’s dismay) to stop sneaking a peek when the mechanism got complicated as I had to be able to do it in complete darkness so as not to expose the film. For my 8mm process I had my lil make shift ‘darkroom’ (didn’t need to be dark as film was tucked up safely in the LOMO tank, which I loaded in the toilet with the lights off lol) @aspacearts Arch 04 by my studio @archesstudiossouthampton. Warmed up my chemicals in a water bath with a monitor heater. Mixed the E6 chemicals (as I chose to shoot colour reversal film) and worked out my timings and made sure I had them all plastered right in my view so not to miss a timing! The film is very sensitive to temperature and timings. And my nose is sensitive to the chemicals! I then used a laundry rack to dry the film, put it on a spool which was a nightmare! And it worked!! I couldn’t believe it! First time developing with these chemicals, and worked first time. It was slightly disconcerting as the image comes out as the film drys, so I left my studio thinking it hadn’t worked, and came back to find a lovely tonal image had come out, of Dad of participating family Benn Benjamin @iamnowbenn and his wee toddler Silver. Can’t wait for ARTICLE 16 to open soon!
And they’re back! Cameras and spent Super 8mm film are starting to arrive at the door from participating families. Looking forward to processing the film and seeing what treasures are inside. My older sisters spoke about when our Dad use to receive back a processed roll of Super 8mm film back after a holiday, and what an exciting moment it was. They made real ceremony of setting up the projector, the sheet as a screen and being nominated ‘the light girl’ to turn off the lights. They described the ritual as “releasing the butterfly”. I’m loving the little notes that are coming back written on the rolls of film from the families – “pretty sure this ones ok”, we had a bit of trouble with cartridges jamming unfortunately.
MEET THE ARTICLE 16 TEAM! Asten Holmes-Elliott is an artist and filmmaker whose work examines ideas of identity, otherness and belonging. They have been hoping to create ARTICLE 16 for a number of years, after revisiting their late father’s collection of 8mm home movies. Asten’s Dad was an artist and sculptor/stone mason, and named Asten after the ancient river crossed by the Normans in the Battle of Hastings, near the abbey he was restoring. He was 10 yrs old in WW2, and used the same standard 8mm camera to film his first family with Asten’s half siblings, and then their family, spanning the gap of generations. @aceagrams funded project ARTICLE 16 allows Asten to follow in his footsteps, where shooting LGBTQI+ families and home developing 8mm film will build a closeness to their Dad, whilst creating a speculative place in history for their own LGBTQI+ community where they can belong.
Eleanor Jones is a lecturer at the University of Southampton. She is particularly interested in queer theory and disability studies, especially the ways that queerness and disability relate to ideas about the ‘family’, and histories of race and empire. Dr Jones is cultural consultant on the project, helping us to contextualise the work and keeping us queer!
Fred is an artist living in Southampton whose interests lie in exploring personal relationships as a fat, ill, queer person. For this project they are handling social media and logistics whilst also exploring beliefs and ideals around family in their own practice.
It’s Fred again. (@iffybiro & @fredashleighthornton)
The first same sex relationship I ever saw was a kiss between two characters in ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’. I must have been about six or seven years old. I was scandalized. My mum didn’t know any LGBTQ+ people at this time in our lives and it was the first time I encountered queerness. I was scared and outraged, and I had no idea why. Homophobia had already seeped into my baby brain somehow without ever having knowingly seen or been around LGBT+ people. Homophobes are always arguing that we are pushing the ‘queer agenda’ down their throats or in their faces whilst gendered ear plugs and ‘Love Island’ exist. I had to work out my own queerphobia and am still having to do that each day as an openly queer person. I grew out of the homophobia quickly, though my first reaction to queerness was negative. I wonder how much quicker it would have happened and if it would have happened at all had there been more positive representation.
ARTICLE 16 is a new video art piece by Asten Holmes-Elliott exhibiting @johnhansardgallery, @aspacearts The Alfred Arcade, and The Spark Building @solentuniversity, until 19th June.
It’s Fred (@iffbiro & @fredashleighthornton)
My friend Genie has started calling me ‘Nanafred’. Mainly because I like knitting, birds and napping. We were talking about whether we wanted to have children one day and as someone with a butt tonne of younger siblings I feel I have spent enough time looking after kids, but I do still think kids are great. She then said I could be ‘Nanafred’ to her kids when she has them. Which works out great for me because we can bake and do crafts and stuff, but then I can give the kids back at the end of the day. I have known that I didn’t want kids since I was 13, but also have been kind of conflicted about it because I love kids and want a family. I found out a few years ago that I may not be able to ever conceive children of my own which made me confront those feelings again. I was already pretty resolved that if I were to have kids, I would adopt but learning about my biology forced me to think about what I actually wanted in a family. And being ‘Nanafred’ is exactly it. Kids are great but bloody exhausting; I have things I want to pass on to children and teach them but also, I like having my own space. After reading ‘Pleasure Activism by @adriennemareebrown I was also introduced to families that operate outside of the cis/het norm and are full of love and support for each other and made me realise that I can have that for myself too. It takes more than two parents to raise a child and I am more than happy to be ‘Nanafred’ to my friend’s kids.
ARTICLE 16 is a new video art piece by Asten Holmes-Elliott exhibiting @johnhansardgallery, @aspacearts The Alfred Arcade, and The Spark Building @solentuniversity, until 19th June.
It’s Fred (@iffybiro & @fredashleighthornton)
I remember the first out queer person I knew, a friend of my nan’s called Verity. I thought she was great, and she always had the coolest trousers. My nan would later ditch Verity in a very cruel way and go on to talk badly about her for being a lesbian. (For context, my nan is the kind of person who has racist dolls on display in her living room and once handed me a Bible with a union jack on the front and the first page was a picture of the Queen because you know, the Queen wrote the Bible obviously.) I was sad when Verity was no longer around my nan’s house because she never spoke down to me and introduced me to lebkuchen, a German gingerbread type thing that I now love and eat loads of every Christmas time. And she also knew all about foraging and natural remedies for things. She was like a cool witch. Verity was very much herself and her interactions didn’t feel performative as I started to notice other interactions did with my more homophobic family. (Though they’d never accept being called homophobic because they love Queen and Elton John.)
ARTICLE 16 is a new video art piece by Asten Holmes-Elliott exhibiting @johnhansardgallery, @aspacearts The Alfred Arcade, and The Spark Building @solentuniversity, until 19th June.
ARTICLE 16 is exhibited in a non-traditional format outside the gallery walls, projected outside onto the pavement at night. Due to possible covid restrictions and the time the piece becomes visible, it maybe difficult for people to see the piece as much as they may like. So we will be having an online launch day, where people can view the artwork online for a limited time. Watch this space!
ARTICLE 16 is a new video art piece exhibiting @johnhansardgallery, @aspacearts The Alfred Arcade, and The Spark Building @solentuniversity, until 19th June.
The artwork hopes to capture LGBTQI+ families using a format that has been traditionally associated with the typical ‘nuclear family’, to playfully insert queer people and families into a shared cultural memory, to challenge certain assumptions about what makes a family, to increase visibility, and to carve out space.
Hi everyone, It is Fred again. (@iffybiro & @fredashleighthornton)
As Pride month starts, I get excited to see all the colours in the street and see all the beautiful people celebrating who they are. But alas, as a physically disabled and mentally ill queer, I am not about all that marching and all that noise. Happy to watch it, never want it to go away, but let me sit down in a quiet corner. This is part of why I love ARTICLE 16 so much. Showing the quieter more everyday part of queer lives, best visible at night with the nostalgic feel of super 8mm film. It is comforting and reassuring to me with my own familial trauma to see domestic representation of the LGBTQ+ community existing peacefully in the loving families they have built for themselves.
ARTICLE 16 is a new video art piece by Asten Holmes-Elliott exhibiting @johnhansardgallery, @aspacearts The Alfred Arcade, and The Spark Building @solentuniversity, until 19th June.
ARTICLE 16 is a new video art piece exhibiting @johnhansardgallery , @aspacearts The Alfred Arcade, and The Spark Building @solentuniversity, until 19th June.
The artwork hopes to capture LGBTQI+ families using a format that has been traditionally associated with the typical ‘nuclear family’, to playfully insert queer people and families into a shared cultural memory, to challenge certain assumptions about what makes a family, to increase visibility, and to carve out space.
Thank you so much to @iamnowbenn and @xyzchar for participating in the project, and filming lil Silver here, and twin Angel somewhere climbing a highchair off frame, chasing bubbles.
ARTICLE 16 will be projected 25th May-19th of June, overnight from the @johnhansardgallery in Guildhall square and The Alfred Arcade on Old Northam Road 5pm-7am (though is best visible after 8pm)
It will also be screened daily at The Spark at @solentuniversity
Thank you so much to Richard, Arron and Aanya for being part of this and giving us this gorgeous still of their family.
