Abigail Child
Appears in 46 titles

Abigail Child has been at the forefront of experimental writing and media since the 1980s, having completed more than thirty film and video works and installations, and six books. An acknowledged pioneer in montage, Child’s early film work addressed the interplay be- tween sound and image in the context of resh aping narrative tropes, in a manner that prefigured many contemporary and future media concerns. Her major projects include Is This What You Were Born For?: a 9 year, 7-part work; B/Side: a film that negotiates the politics of internal colonialism in New York City; 8 Million: a collaboration with avant-percussionist Ikue Mori that re- defines the “music video”; The Suburban Trilogy: a modular digi-film that prismatically examines a politics of place and identity; and MirrorWorlds: a multi-screen installation that incorporates parts of Child’s “foreign film” series to explore narrative excess. A new film, A Shape of Error, is constructed as an imaginary ‘home movie’ of the life of Mary Shelley. Child has exhibited worldwide, with retrospectives at Anthology Film Archives (NY), the San Francisco Cinematheque, Sala Trevi in Rome, Exis (Korea), and Harvard Cinematheque, and in important showcases such as The Whitney Biennale, the Viennale and MoMA’s Millenium show. Her work is featured at numerous international film festivals, including the New York Film Festival, Rotterdam, Locarno and London Festivals, among others and is in the permanent collections of MOMA, NY, Centre Pompidou, and Arsenal Berlin. Child has received numerous awards and accolades, including the Rome Prize, a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellow, Fulbright Award and the Stan Brakhage Award. Harvard University Cinematheque has created an Abigail Child Collection dedicated to preserving and exhibiting her work. As a teacher at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Child has been instrumental in building an expansive media and film art program; she has influenced a generation of younger artists. Child is also the author of five books of poetry (A Motive for Mayhem, Scatter Matrix and Artificial Memory among them) and a book of critical writings: THIS IS CALLED MOVING: A Critical Poetics of Film from University of Alabama Press (2005).

Filmography

Mayhem
5.8
Mayhem
1987
Director
Mercy
5.0
Mercy
1989
Director
Fucking Different New York
1.3
Fucking Different New York
2007
Director
On the Downlow
2.3
On the Downlow
2007
Director
Prefaces
7.0
Prefaces
1981
Director
Perils
6.0
Perils
1986
Director
Mutiny
5.0
Mutiny
1983
Director
B/Side
9.0
B/Side
1996
Director
Origin of the Species
6.0
Origin of the Species
2020
Director
BLUE EDIT
6.0
BLUE EDIT
2020
Director
Peripeteia I
Peripeteia I
1977
Director
Peripeteia II
Peripeteia II
1978
Director
Surface Noise
Surface Noise
2000
Director
Except for the People
1970
Director
A Shape of Error
A Shape of Error
2012
Director
Unbound
2013
Director
Covert Action
Covert Action
1984
Director
Acts and Intermissions
Acts and Intermissions
2017
Director
Both
Both
1988
Director
Elsa merdelamerdelamer
Elsa merdelamerdelamer
2013
Director