Research insights
Confessions to the Mirror shows how, via restaging, the medium of film has the potential to connect the text and photographs of a historical artist, creating a dialogue between a contemporary artist and the historical one in a way that eliminates the institutional apparatus of the documentary film.
Using or restaging the photographs of a historic artist and combining this with voices from their own writing, can offer viewers an experiential rather than informationally driven insight into the artist’s oeuvre. Tableaux vivants, as used in Confessions to the Mirror, show the connections between the writing and the photographs that are placed together in the film.
My film provides new insights into the shifting critical context around Cahun and her collaboration with Moore. It also highlights both the artistic (and political) work of a historical artist and offers a new form of collaboration between that historical artist and a contemporary one. Rather than inform “about” a historical artist, as a documentary might, my alternative strategy informs “with” that artist, privileging her voice, words and images with (my) filmic and aural transposition and interpretation.