The winning films at Two Short Nights are presented with the D+CFilm Award. This year’s award, created by Frances Davidson, continued the strong tradition of innovation, creativity and craft – pop corn floats, Lara’s theme from Dr Zhivago plays and film details pervade in the magical creation. We caught up with Frances to find out more about her and her work
Tell us about yourself – what’s your background?
I was very lucky as a child to be let loose in my father’s workshop. He is a luthier and the instruments he produces are extraordinary. He would supply me with a huge range of materials and any technical advice I needed. So I’ve been sculpting and making as long as I can remember, but I would say it was a visit to an exhibition in Falmouth when I was eight by the automata artist Paul Spooner, that first set me on my path.
How would you describe your work and where do you get your inspiration from?
I take inspiration for my work from a long-held fascination with curiosity cabinets from the 16th and 17th century. The objects within these cabinets were placed in order of their appeal to the imagination and symbolic similarities rather than any scientific or ethnological ones. We view these collections as disjointed and nonsensical because of our obsession with segregation and categorisation of art and fields of understanding. Using sculpture and automata making as my medium I produce pseudo collectibles, imbuing them with an invented history, often toy like but with dark and sinister overtones.
Where did you get your inspiration for the D+CFilm award for Two Short Nights?
The inspiration behind the award came from my relationship with film. I have always found cinema’s ability to envelop the viewer until there is a complete suspension of disbelief to be absolutely magical. So I wanted each award to contain its own little world where time is slowed and reality bent. Fluid and popcorn-filled snow domes seemed a great solution.
They all have different filmic references, from a miniature film strip showing images by Eadweard Muybridge to the clapper board detailing a take from the 1973 adult film The Devil in Miss Jones by Gerard Damiano. Also all the awards play Lara’s theme from Dr Zhivago when the little handle is rotated, simply because I could not resist it.
How did you go about producing the award?
So many different processes were used in the production of the awards, because of their very nature everything within the glass domes needed to be waterproof and the glass domes themselves, recessed heavily into the bases so as to be shake proof. The first thing people do with an award is usually wave it around and that’s what snow domes are for. The original base maquette was carved from wood then repeatedly cast in resin, as were the floorboards, even the popcorn pieces are resin replicas. I initially tried to waterproof and weight real popcorn, but they just turned out to be lead shot with little life preservers on. So I ended up making moulds of five different shaped pieces of popcorn then casting and hand painting them 30 times – fun.
What’s the most satisfying element about doing what you do?
It stops my fingers from itching! I can’t not make. I constantly have to be making something or experimenting with new material sand processes. I was once on an almost deserted island in Thailand for two weeks and it drove me insane, I ended up making things from bits of coconut and washed up string. There is nothing quite like watching the faces of people as they interact with your work though, that’s deeply satisfying.
Are you a fan of film?
I’m a massive film fan, from wonderful old silent films like Metropolis and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari to black and white horror films. The dark stop-motion animation of the Quay Brothers and Jan Svankmajer are a huge influence on my work. I’m currently really into the films of Guillermo del Torro, although my favourite film of all time is The City of the Lost Children by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, I would have loved to have worked on those sets.
What projects are on the horizon for the future?
I’m having fun with 120 meters of laboratory glass and a propane torch at the moment, a coral like circulatory system with a central beating heart and more automata. There are always several projects on the go.
• Other D+CFilm Awards for Two Short Nights have been created by Helen Snell and Ben Yates.
