Peep Show
Fri 15 Mar – Sat 4 May, Bonington Gallery, NTU
An illusion cut to the measure of desire
Visible only through spyholes in the perimeter walls of Bonington Gallery; Peep Show curated by feminist collective Invisible Women brings together a series of archive film fragments that explore the interaction between spectator and subject, eye and body, across the history of film.
Weaving together extracts from early films by women working at the cutting edge of the emerging artform—including Alice Guy Blache, Germaine Dulac and Lois Weber—this innovatively staged exhibition reflects how the medium’s conventions have been shaped by the eyes behind the camera.
Over the course of its transformation from novelty to artform, cinema has continually drawn on its peep show roots to captivate, titillate, and absorb. By drawing inspiration from quietly subversive, once-forgotten work made by early women filmmakers, Peep Show also invites us to question who has shaped this cinematic language, offering a playful potential subversion to dominant aesthetic conventions.
“Beware—sometimes this peep show looks back.”
Curated by Invisible Women Archive. In collaboration with Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University.
Free
This event will take place at Bonington Gallery, Dryden Street NG1 4GG
Invisible Women seek out and champion the work of women and filmmakers with marginalised identities who have been overlooked, un-credited or left out of the history of cinema. By drawing attention to these forgotten stories, Invisible Women aim to reinsert female voices into the story of film.