Barbara Cleveland (Diana Baker Smith, Frances Barrett, Kate Blackmore and Kelly Doley)
2019
Single Channel HD Video
13:28 minutes

Inspired by the description of the friendship between the two authors Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy as a ‘thinking business for and with each other’, This is a stained glass window enquires into the friendship and 15-year shared intellectual and creative pursuit of Barbara Cleveland. In this work, the collective positions their friendship, their artistic labour and their collaboration as a stained glass window - an accumulated density that exists between them.

Through a self-reflexive video portrait, which draws on the aesthetics and conventions of cinéma vérité, conceptual art and performance documentation, This is a stained glass window traces Barbara Cleveland’s unique working model and their imbricated lives. Exposing their working method in a film studio, this video is an intimate portrait of the collective which purposefully deliberates on how their specific 'thinking business' can offer an alternative support structure for and with each other.

Work Details
Composer: Corin Ileto
Video editing: Kate Blackmore
Colourist: Julien Chichignoud
Sound Mixer: Lachlan Harris

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This project was assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.