Annabelle, Barbra, Becky, Alexis, Krystle, Ellen, Olive, Eve and Kirsten, not stumbling, sliding, sinking, falling or oblivious
A design film depicting the researcher training herself to effortlessly walk in high heels across an obstacle course – an investigation into the relationship between mobility, high-heel wearing and the sociocultural construction of women on screen.
- Submitting institution
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Kingston University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32-109-0000
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- Folkestone Triennial Fringe 2014
- Open access status
- -
- Month of production
- -
- Year of production
- 2014
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Annabelle, Barbra, Becky, Alexis, Krystle, Ellen, Olive, Eve and Kirsten, not stumbling, sliding, sinking falling or oblivious (2014) is a film output by Marloes ten Bhömer that depicts the researcher training herself to effortlessly walk in high heels across an obstacle course. It was commissioned by Transition Gallery, London, for Folkestone Triennial Fringe 2014, and is part of ten Bhömer’s larger design research interest in relationship between mobility, high-heel wearing and the socio-cultural construction of women on screen. The film seeks to contribute gendered approaches to critical design, and expand fashion film research through use of film as both a subject and medium for design research.
Ten Bhömer selected, and analysed, a broad selection of films in order to produce a taxonomy of moments in which the female protagonist’s mobility has been compromised through a high-heel mishap, and where the terrain traversed is complicit in sidelining her. She was interested in how this trope is used as a cinematic tool for plot and character development, and to guide the audience’s perception of high-heeled women on-screen. The woman’s restricted mobility suggests a lack of agency and personality, exposing her marginalised role in male-centric narratives.
Ten Bhömer rejected these normative cinematic representations by designing a film that depicts the researcher training herself to walk without fail across a purpose-built obstacle course, in references to selected film landscapes. The set foregrounds these spaces as physical and mental obstacles in the original film narrative, while providing a training course for embodied research. By walking over the obstacle course, a literal traversing of cinematic place and history is achieved. In so doing, ten Bhömer sought to expand feminist approaches to include movement training as a form of protest, seeking to overcome the limitations placed on women’s mobility, subsequent cinematic roles and how they are perceived.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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