Chernobyl journey: process and subversion in woman’s self-reflexive animation

This research focuses on the correlation between women’s self-reflexive animation and subversion. I first observed this correlation in my own practice in making my long form mixed media documentary Chernobyl Journey, when I attempted to evade politically loaded popular narratives that I found constraining. Despite my intentions, the film quickly became both more political and more subversive when I designated myself as the subject. Observing other examples of women’s self-reflexive animation, I noticed that ‘subversive’, tending to undermine authority, was a description that could be applied to many of the films I viewed. In this research I discuss why this correlation exists through detailed analysis of my own and other women’s self-reflexive animation. Drawing on existing scholarship in the study of animated memories, animated autobiography, and women’s animation, I first interrogate whether animation process and techniques play a role in generating subversion in women’s self- reflexive animation. I then consider what the process of making animation brings to the creative renegotiation of identity that is entailed by the mediation of one’s own memories, by any means. My arguments are illustrated by twelve detailed case studies of women’s self-reflexive animation, ranging from Joanna Priestley’s Voices (1985) to Christine Panushka’s Blood of the Family Tree (2021), set within an historical overview that ranges from Faith Hubley’s work in the 1950s, through to contemporary work such as Shira Avni’s One to One (2022) or Tal Kantor’s (2021) Letter to a Pig. I argue that animation techniques and process, and the renegotiation of identity that is required to mediate memories by animation, both contribute to facilitating subversion in women’s self-reflexive animation. However, I argue that they do not generate subversion. Rather they facilitate the discovery and expression of subversion that is already latent in the animator. The amount of time, commitment and focus that is required to make animation, the meditative effect of repetitive gesture, and the plasticity of the medium of animation combine to enable a level of self-reflexivity that is deep enough to dismantle societal, political and familial pressures, enabling female animators to speak with a more authentic, and therefore a more subversive voice through their animation.

Citation

Pearce, S. (2024) Chernobyl journey: process and subversion in woman’s self-reflexive animation. University of Wolverhampton. http://hdl.handle.net/2436/625856

Publisher

University of Wolverhampton

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/2436/625856

Type

Thesis or dissertation

Language

en

Description

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

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Collections

Theses and Dissertations