Mental Falls

About

Mental Falls (2022) is an essay film weaving the voices of singers with Louisa's own voice in a close observation of her sister Hetta Fairclough's sketchbook. Hetta (1973-2008) produced a remarkable sketchbook of drawings which take the form of assemblages and visual poems. Her drawings probe at the complexities of being, pulling on her own experience to give voice to psychological intensities. Page by page Louisa’s interpretation of her sister’s drawings - spoken and sung - becomes the soundtrack to the film.

Feel Stupid (2024) is an expanded film installation with five 16mm film loops that stretch across the gallery space. The film installation, made with Louisa’s long-term collaborators, composer Richard Glover, singer Samuel Middleton and performer Nancy Trotter Landry, once again responds to a drawing from Hetta’s sketchbook as a sonic score. The page now smudged with the shadow of time has strips of masking tape that hinge from the centre over folded newspaper cuttings. Along each length of masking tape is a phrase she's written in felt-tip pen. Shards of these phrases were intoned and recorded onto tape; they now splinter across the film loops like a maelstrom of anxious thoughts. Projected onto five small pieces of float glass are gestures illuminated by a flashgun, glimpses of a pulling down and a contracting of things, an embodiment of some sort of reality that is not, a turmoil inside the head and body.

Sparse and delicate, Human Interaction (2019/24) responds to another page from Hetta’s sketchbook in which a feather pressed under laminate has the words HUMAN INTERACTION written five times along the feather’s shaft. The phrase was sung over and over whilst being recorded onto tape to create a slow composite harmony. The 19-minute composition was devised with composer Richard Glover and performed by singer Samuel Middleton and musician George McKenzie. The recording is pressed onto a vinyl dub plate.

Hetta’s Sketchbook (Human Interaction) (2014) is a single photograph from a photographic series in which Louisa holds Hetta’s sketchbook, the hand processed photographs were made in collaboration with Milo Newman.

Feel Stupid was made with the support of Plymouth College of Art and Labordy Ffilm Aber - the 16mm film lab at Aberystwyth University. Hetta’s Sketchbook (Human Interaction) (2014) was made with the support of ICIA University of Bath.