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Accelerate Animation

 

Our Accelerate Sessions bring together animation artists, producers and curators, in conversation about aspects of contemporary animation practice.

Watch recent Accelerate Sessions below and follow this link to find recordings of previous Accelerate Sessions on Vimeo

Accelerate Session: All that is solid
recorded 13 February 2025

Three of the artists with work in All that is solid: the third Animate OPEN – Meghana Bisineer, Emily Sasmor, and Case Jernigan – in conversation with artist Katerina Athanasopoulou, particularly looking at working in animation to delve into ideas of belonging and place.

Meghana Bisineer is an Indian-born artist, curator and educator, working across experimental animation, installation, performance and ritual practice. Her works are shown internationally across film festivals, museums, galleries, and artist-lead spaces. She is interested in poetic materiality and the nature of time and personal memory. She studied at the Royal College of Art and India’s National Institute of Design. She is founder and curator of Eyewash Experimental Animation Salon. She is based in Oakland, California, and an Associate Professor of Animation and Graduate Fine Arts at California College of the Arts.

Case Jernigan grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. He makes art about illness and masculinity, sharing vulnerable worlds, and values play and rhythm. Residencies include the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, Harvestworks, and The Center for Book Arts, New York. Screenings include HotDocs, Hollyshorts, Salute Your Shorts and The Video Art and Experimental Film Festival, New York. Case is a Screen Australia grant recipient and his film eggshell received a Vimeo Staff Pick. He’s made murals, short films and illustrations for media outlets and brands including The New York Times, Vimeo and The Guardian. He studied painting at The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia and United States William & Mary and the New York Studio School.

Emily Sasmor is a new media artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Their projects have appeared in various shows including; Curyatid in Hudson Yards (New York, NY), and Digerati Emergent Media Festival (Denver, CO). She studied at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University, in Philadelphia and received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Katerina Athanasopoulou is a Greek artist living in London who creates animated films for cinema and gallery space. Her award-winning films have been shown internationally at film festivals and galleries, including Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Tampere Film Festival, Thessaloniki Biennale 3, Holland Animation Film Festival, Zebra Poetry Film Festival, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb. She has created films for Channel 4, London College of Fashion, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and she won the Lumen Prize in 2013 with her short film Apodemy.

Katerina studied Fine Art at Aristotle University in Greece, and has an MA Animation from the Royal College of Art. She has a PhD from Plymouth University, on the intersections of documentary, VR, and AR, through the lens of animation.

Accelerate Session: Sustainable Practice
recorded 28 October 2024

This session explored sustainable practice for experimental animation. Led by Lauren Orme, Director, Cardiff Animation Festival, with artists Lewis Heriz, Dominica Harrison, and Kim Noce.

 

Lauren Orme is an award-winning animator and director based in Cardiff. She is the Festival Director of Cardiff Animation Festival. Lauren studied animation at the University of Wales, Newport, and has been based in Cardiff since 2010. In 2014, Lauren founded Cardiff Animation Nights, showcasing animated short films from the international festival circuit to a thriving audience in Cardiff, before co-founding Cardiff Animation Festival in 2018. Lauren is also Creative Director of Picl Animation, an animation studio in Cardiff which she co-founded in 2018. Picl is one of the first animation companies in the UK to become a certified B Corporation.

Lewis Heriz is a cross-disciplinary artist whose animation work is informed by his background in music, theatre, printmaking and the study of semiotics. He completed his MA in Experimental Animation from the Royal College of Art in 2021 with the award-winning short film project So Long, which was developed and expanded into a sculptural installation as part of the Out of Hand group exhibition during Fringe Arts Bath, 2023. The project’s central concern – how the attention economy forces us to neglect the environment at the very moment it needs us most – found its optimistic response in the alternative systems practiced by the Hannah Fields community, documented in On Hannah Fields (2024).

Dominica Harrison is an award winning international artist currently based in UK. She specialises in animation direction and illustration, with a particular focus on printmaking. She is interested in storytelling as a mechanism of learning and social change and exercises play as the main approach to creating work. She draws back from the old forms of storytelling – the myths, the legends, the songs and the cosmogonies. Her film ‘Chado’, made with the support from BFI Network, was longlisted for BAFTA 2021 and toured UK with two solo shows showcasing printmaking work from the film. Dominica is interested in presenting her films in the art and design spaces, working in the intersection between animation, performance and installation.

Kim Noce is a multimedia artist specialising in animation. She has directed award-winning films and led significant projects blending cultural heritage with immersive technology. Her work emphasises social justice, and she currently serves as Course Director for the MA Animation at UAL. Kim has a background in animation, fine arts, and scenography, and her career focuses on creating innovative, socially impactful art.

Other links:

Accelerate Session: PLANTING artists
recorded 17 September 2024
BSL interpreter

Our PLANTING programme commissioned artists Simon Hamlyn, Lewis Heriz, and Karen Okpoti, to make short, animated films that explore our relationship to nature – cultivation, community, environment, and place – in response to the work of three Derby ‘gardens’ –  Derby Arboretum (Britain’s first public park), Hannah Fields community garden, and Derbyshire Wildlife Trust’s urban Green Corridor project. The PLANTING artists were in conversation with artist and curator Chiara Dellerba.

The Personal Archive (March 2024)
Jessica Ashman in conversation with Mary Martins and Maybelle Peters about what the ‘personal archive’ means to them, their work and their individual artistic practice, especially within the realms of animation and moving image.

 

ANIMATE X QUAD: identity (February 2024)
Jessica Ashman and Jake Elwes – two of the artists in our exhibition with QUAD, Derby, talking with Suzanne Golden, artist and Co-director of BACKLIT, the artist-led public gallery and studios in Nottingham.

 

Live Animation (January 2024)
Curated by Birgitta Hosea, with Rose Bond, Johannes DeYoung, and Miwa Matreyek.

There are biographies and recordings of the Accelerate Sessions below from 2020, on Vimeo.

Follow this link.

Female Figures: Abigail Addison from Animate talks with Jessica Ashman, Anna Bunting-Branch and  Michelle Kranot.

Two sessions curated by Edwin Rostron/Edge of Frame
–  exploring the challenges and opportunities presented by VR for artists working with animation. With artists Katerina Athanasopoulou, Edwina Ashton and her collaborator David Jacobs, and hosted by Dr LIlly Husbands
– Cheng-Hsu Chung (Taiwan/Berlin), Wednesday Kim (South Korea/USA) and Amy Lockhart (Canada), discuss their vibrant, absurd and transgressive work in animation and beyond, with Dr Lilly Husbands

Three session in partnership with British Council Film
– Helen De Witt (BFI London Film Festival Experimenta) talks with Edwin Carels (International Film Festival Rotterdam), Aneta Ozorek (Kaboom Animation Festival, Amsterdam) and Wiktoria Petzer (Vienna Shorts), and Herb Shellenberger (Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival)
– Ellie Land and Alys Scott Hawkins from Animated Documentary talk with Mary Martins, John Summerson, and Signe Baumane
–  Tom Higham, York Mediale; Liz Rosenthal, Venice Film Festival; Jürgen Hagler, Ars Electronica; Helen Starr, Mechatronic Library; Ulrich Schrauth, London Film Festival Expanded, with Gary Thomas from Animate

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