Yolk and Aliens
Combining a collection of archive material from VHS home footage to diary recordings Jane Horrocks, Molly Vivian, Francesca Levi and Camilla Clarke have created a memory shop full of treasures and horrors.
I embarked on the Yolk and Aliens journey with Francesca Levi (video artist) about three years ago. In my archive I have a lot of VHS family footage. I’d seen Francesca’s film The Colour of Chips and loved her use of collage and imagery. I thought her style would lend itself perfectly to reinventing this archive material.
In the early stages we thought we were making a film about my daughter Molly flying the nest. As the piece evolved, however, it became more and more about innocence and the jumble of memory during a child’s formative years. On completing Yolk, I felt we needed to make a companion piece. It seemed an obvious choice to use my mother as the subject matter. Apart from the multi generational aspect, Aliens soon became about my mother’s Alzheimer’s. It mirrored Yolk in its theme of jumbled memory. Molly, a music student at the time, scored both films, interlacing my diary readings with synthesiser and piano.
There is an opportunity for the audience at the end of the films to focus on their own memories. The fascination for me is to see and hear what the piece evokes in people.
PLEASE NOTE: This is an event from Brighton Festival 2021. This year the video will be available to watch here on our website.
Watch Yolk & Aliens here from 7–29 May
