A Video Installation
Woman with a Movie Camera: an exploded view of the films of Margaret Perry
This video installation repurposes footage from the many films Margaret Perry made for the Nova Scotia Government during the 1950s and 1960s. Individual shots from the films have been made into loops and organized across 18 home movie screens to focus on rhythms and visual compositions in Perry’s work. This process brings Perry’s groundbreaking oeuvre into conversation with Dziga Vertov’s 1929 famous cinematic experiment, Man with a Movie Camera, a film that shares an encyclopedic interest in the quotidian aspects of life and – like Margaret Perry’s work – created a foundation for further cinematic exploration. This ‘exploded view’ of Perry’s work strips away the sound and the voiceover-driven narratives. It allows us to concentrate on the remarkable eye of one amazing woman with a movie camera.