Works&Projects

Synopsis:

Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck melds dark allegorical scenes with slapstick comedy. It was produced as part of a Bristol Mean Time residency in partnership with Film London Artist's Moving Image Network.

Emily Wardill's 16mm film Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck employs imagery from the tradition of British ecclesiastic stained-glass painting to create a complex and richly layered film combining humour with a deep sense of unease.

The film points to diverse theoretical and art historical references, from John Ruskin to Jaques Ranciere, and from nineteenth-century cubist painting to Pier Paolo Pasolini's controversial 1963 short film La Ricotta (for which he was imprisoned for blasphemy on the basis of ‘enacting' a religious scene as a comedy sketch).

A series of seemingly unrelated scenes time travel through diverse temporalities: medieval scenes collide with the banalities of modern-day office life. A soundtrack of nineteenth-century choral music juxtaposed with dance hall beats, spoken dialogue and voice-overs becomes an additional discordant layer.