Synapse Festival | Artists

Explored through film, installation and interactivity, Laura Ellis’ observations, participation and documentation respond to the positions she adopts within the different social realms she routinely operates in. Constantly shifting between these places, each of the different roles in which she functions, such as the artist, has its own set of audiences. Even though Ellis actively participates within them, outlining the roles that are adopted in these environments and who they are shared with remains uncertain for her.

Whilst the act of bringing one into the other re-contextualises her own experiences, the familiarity of the everyday events and social spaces means that the audience can position themselves within the work, as it follows our patterns, habits and movements, originating from those of her Midlands working class background.

Essentially these places of service, socializing and exchange that are central to Ellis’ works, confront the way the audience interacts with the space and how structures can represent those that are socializing in them, whether that be in the gallery or outside of it.

Spontaneously capturing the footage of the buffet being offered to us as members of the Wednesday Bingo, the first of the films in the work, previously titled A Bit of Buffet, initially documented the activity around this celebratory offering of food. Other experiences of food being used to generate an audience and physical activity into a space, particularly around the art gallery, lead me to re-stage the encounter of the buffet from my local Miners Welfare, into the opening of an art exhibition through an intervention.

In repositioning these cultural elements, the act of social exchange was bought directly into the gallery, where the encounter became framed by the audience who interacted with it within that space. Having documented the re-staging of the buffet, these two films were then bought together and presented simultaneously in the work which was presented at the MA Show at Nottingham Trent University.

Presenting them in this way allows for a new audience to question their position, the audiences within these environments and the activity happening at these times, where captured moments contrast and cross over with the other.

Laura Ellis | 0784 6574260 | laura_ellis1@hotmail.com