gudrun filipska

Found and collected images of collapsing houses, subsidence, sink holes and people falling over. An Fmr Group Project, ongoing since 2016.

The Title 'Ea, eau, eay, elt'. comes from old colloquial East Anglian words for moisture and dampness - 'elt' relating specifically to the soft dampness of earth. The work in progress is being made in the pockets of wild undrained Fen surrounding my home in East Cambridgeshire (Fordham ‘Wetwoods’, Wicken Fen and Chippenham Fen). The works in the series include a film documenting the search for the elusive Water Buffalo with my children, digital photographs, an audio-journey around Wicken fen following Wild Konik ponies and a series of infa red medium format images in development.

The project takes as departure point a longstanding interest in fugal subjectivity and walking practice, the works which form 'Ea, eau, eay, elt' reflect the syncopated and staccato rhythms of walking with children, both the tedium and fascination in their constant foraging and finding objects, and ideas of disappointment and failure in non-completed walks or walks full of tears, fights, falls. The works explore ideas of territory, boundaries, circularity and the ways in which family groups map and posses territory. These are walks to stay sane, a necessity, a marking of territory and often a performed event. Most importantly they are walks with others, carrying, pushing, or walking side by side.

The reclusive science fiction writer Walter Miller was inspired to write his only novel, the post apocalyptic Canticle for Liebowitz after taking part in the Allied bombing of the abbey of monte Cassino during the second World War. This film has as its interests the ideas of war trauma, ruinscapes and their re-imaginings and the correlations of science-fiction and 1950's cold was hysteria.

Part one of the Filipski Shed project envolved a re-staging of the shed my father had in the garden of my childhood home using the tools and various objects I inherited after his death. The Marrow references a strong memory of when my Polish grandfather left a marrow in the shed in exchange for some tools he had borrowed.

An 8mm film .

Documentation of my daughters obsession with covering, wrapping and enclosing objects. A behaviour termed 'envelopment' by psychologist Jean Piaget in his writings on children’s play schemas.

Medium format photographs.

A collection of pre-1980 images comprised of other peoples holiday snaps, found photographs, press and surveyor photography. Please get in contact to view or submit to the archive.

The film depicts a walk across a series of overgrown slag heaps on the outskirts of Liege, Belgium, shot on a digital camera with an attached 1960's Canon camera lens. The camera is attached to the arm by a custom made device and is subject to all the body's movements and the jolts and rhythms of walking. The Camera is trained on the ground and intermittently picks up details of the pathways; litter, wild flowers and loose stones as they move in and out of focus. The film features sound in real time, each footstep, the sound of breathing as the summit is neared, cars in the distance and the creaks as the camera swings against the leg.

First screened at the State Puppet Theatre, Varna, Bulgaria. as part of Videoholica 2013.

The fmr group is a research artist partnership active since 2008 set up by Gudrun Filipska and William Filipski-McDonald to test the notion of ‘Consensus geographies’ - (locations with cultural identities which may have become overprescribed) and realise various visual and spatial culture and practice-as-research projects.

Gudrun Filipska is an artist and researcher - William Filipski-McDonald is a writer and artist currently working on a book about Hans Jurgen Syberberg's film Of Wagner's Opera Parcifal and training to be a psychotherapist.

Fmr works

Journey to Goslar (Film) -2010.

Outer Trial Bank- (photographs film) 2011-ongoing.

A Canticle for Liebowitz's Monte Cassino (film).- 2012

Bartlet's People(Photographs/writing) -2016

A series of largescale etchings with pencil and carbon paper. An excercise in re-interpretation.

'After John Constable's 'Landscape with a Double Rainbow' 1818.' Etching, pencil on watercolour paper.

'After John Sell Cottman's 'Mousehold Heath' 1810'. Carbon Paper print, Pencil on watercolour paper.

'After P.S Munn's 'The Great wheel at Broseley' 1803' Carbon paper print, pencil on Watercolour paper.

'After John Martin's 'The Great Day of his Wrath' 1851-53'. Carbon paper print, pencil on watercolour paper. 

A film of a road trip to the town of Goslar in the Harz mountains in Germany, along the famous Route der Industriekultur. Passing through the Ruhr valley in 2010, the year when the Ruhr was the European capital of culture. The journey serves as a kind of Pilgrimage to the birthplace of the Marist art historian Francis Donald Kilingender in the Harz mountains and is set to Bruno Walter's Birth of A Performance, (The rehearsal and Performance of Mozart's Linz Symphony 1955)

Shot digitally through an old canon camera lens.

An fmr group work.

A body of work created in response to psychiatric case studies of Fugal subjects, those with a pathological need to wander. Fugue termed in 1980 copy of the DSM as the ‘psychogenic fugue’

'the predominant disturbance is sudden, unexpected travel away from home or ones’ customary place of work, with inability to recall one’s past’

‘confusion about personal identity or assumption of new identity (partial or complete)’

‘the disturbance does not occur exclusively during the course of Dissociative Identity Disorder and is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g. , a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., temporal lobe epilepsy)’

‘the symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning.

Works include a translation to English of a section from doctor Philip Tissies 'Les Aliénes Voyageurs' a collection of case studies concerning 'the first Fugueur' Henri Dadas, An audio work (An actor's reading of Dada's accounts of his journeys whilst in 'Fugue state'), a series of Pamplets taking Dada's hypnosis as subject and etchings drawn 'blindly' whilst listening the audio work of Dada's ambulatory accounts.

1000 Stop frame films made over a two year period, In progress.

A series of twenty drawings of 'follys' and contrived ruins. Pencil on paper 14.5 x 21cm.

A film about territory, boundaries and locality. In two parts. Part 1 shown at Cambridge Art Salon 2016. Part of the larger body of work ‘ea-eau-eay-elt’.

See also here and here

An ongoing Fmr group project into Outer Trial Bank, a man-made circular island two miles out to sea in the Wash. Created in the 1970's as a governmental water storage scheme, now abandoned.

Works include a series of Pinhole Camera photographs and a dual screen digital film. In progress.

see here

A small gallery space on a shelf in our house in Fordham, Cambridgeshire. The gallery is situated above our record collection and below our book shelves and is run by me and my daughter Sigi. We specialise in showing diminutive and site specific works and curate a running programme of tiny exhibitions. The shelf gallery was started as part of my Artists residency in motherhood in 2016.

Shelf makes a statement about the difficulty in obtaining and affording a 'traditional gallery space' as well as raising issues around the tensions between domestic and 'professional' spaces and the implicit assumption within the industry that these spheres remain separate.

It addresses the difficulties in conducting an artistic or curatorial practice within a domestic space. and the challenge artists/gallery owners who are parents also face.

Shelf opened as part of the first world wide Apartments and Studios Biennial. Nov 2016.