Work of the last five years is clarifying into what I’m calling the Unlikeness series. Comprising Spinning (2023); Shedding (2024); Deliquesce (2022) and Le Corps Morcele (2025) hand processing and methods of superimposition render the figure as ethereal or dense, fragmented and unfamiliar.
https://saltonline.org/en/2965
15 November – 20 December, Shedding in Visions in the Nunnery, London
19 December: Not (a)part and Noisy Licking, Dribbling and Spitting will be screening in ‘Forms of Care’ at Salt in Turkey.
ON CURRENTLY, NOVEMBER 2025
. 15 November – 20 December, Shedding in Visions in the Nunnery, London
review of Shedding at The Nunnery by David Andrews, Londonblog.
‘ Vicky Smith’s Shedding (2014) is a moving image self portrait shot in 16mm monochrome. It is a remarkable exploration of the self through the gradual removal of superimposed images. This entrancing four minute film reminds me of William Kentridge’s live action/charcoal animation short Invisible Mending where a similar dissolving and repairing of the self seems to be happening. Both films are consoling representations of the struggle to become whole in a world where the forces of fragmentation seem to be in the ascendant’.
https://mialondonblog.wordpress.com/2025/12/09/melancholic-yet-hopeful-moving-image-artworks-for-a-world-in-disarray-visions-2-at-the-nunnery/
. 21st November, Not(a)part, Southampton Film Week
https://jhg.art/events/experimental-cinema-dark-into-light/
following the dark into light screening
Le Corps Morcele in ‘Beautiful Bodies’ at Union Art Gallery, Wisconsin Milwaukee
unionartgallery ‘Explore the intersections of bodies, horror, and film at the Union Cinema Thursday, October 30th at 7pm with a post-film reception in the Union Art Gallery! The event will feature films from Vicky Smith, one of the artists from Beautiful Bodies, Peter Tcherkassky, Maya Deren, Sarah Pucill, and Lyra Lark Hill.’
‘ Le Corps Morcele is a fascinating piece and seems to underline the feeling of the sublime, a concept that ties the uncanny concept of the body together in Beautiful Bodies. We would absolutely love to show this work and have it on loan for the exhibition, which runs from October 8-31 in the Union Art Gallery’. Samantha Timm, Manager for Arts Programming
. October 11th, Shedding at LAV, Madrid 
‘ Tomorrow at 21:00 on @cinestudiocba we wait for you at the first screening of the season. Vicky Smith, Biviana Chauchi, Nathaniel Dorsky, Jorge Domingo, Amanda Dawn Christie, Juniche Okuyama and Patrice Kirchhofer in a program that claims the power of cutting-edge cinema to investigate its infinite potentials. Movies that each from their own radicalism explore different cinematic forms and procedures.’
. October 14th, Noisy Licking, Dribbling & Spitting in Scratch Collection, Paris
TERRAFORM: LIFE OF FORMS Scratch Collection, Paris
https://lightcone.org/en/news-921-terraformer-la-vie-des-formes
. 17 October, Le Corps Morcele, ‘Breaking Codes’ in Cinema Different and Experimental, Paris.
https://cjcinema.org/en/agenda/2025/octobre/competition-3/
in discussion at Cinema Different, Paris
. 6 November, Le Corps Morcele in ‘ bodies in space and time’, Engauge Film Festival, Seattle
https://nwfilmforum.org/films/engauge-2025-bodies-in-space-and-time/
https://interbaycinemasociety.org/engauge/
earlier this year…..
. 13 September Not (a)part in ‘Other Cinema’, ‘Kino Critters’ SF
https://www.atasite.org/2025/09/13/oc-kino-critters/
Saturday, September 13, 2025, 8:00 pm, KORNELIA BOCZKOWSKA’s THE ANIMAL SHOW Ever wondered how experimental films represent animals? Our international cinema sister Kornelia personally introduces a global program that challenges the representation of animals in mainstream media, highlighting non-anthropocentric modes of seeing, being, and movement. These home movies, diaries, animations, found footage, and music videos–both handmade and digital–deepen our understanding of … Continue reading OC: KINO CRITTERS
Kornelia Boczkowska, Curator Other Cinema
‘ with regard to your film Not (A) Part. I recently came across your brilliant film as I’m now working on a book on animals in experimental cinema… it’s is one of the best and most original films I’ve seen in the past few years and I screen hundreds of films for festivals every year’.
https://www.instagram.com/promenadeprojects01/
. June 6, Deliquesce, projected as a 16 mm loop at ‘Promenade’, Weston, UK.
DELIQUESCE, 2022/ 1 min loop/ UK / No Dialogue / Experimental
‘ The film is part of a series of self portraits in which the artist represents her body as unruly. In this case, the sea is a medium that entangles Smith in seaweed, bubbles and reflections of sunlight’ Vickie Fear, Aspex). I made a loop out of an action of holding my breath whilst going underwater. It is a 1 minute extract from DELIQUESCE. The action lasts for the duration of one wind of my Bolex camera and that corresponds to a single breath and the length of the film loop.
Touring through Europe and USA. I have the privilege for Shedding to be accompanied by the amazing cellist, Lori Goldston.
https://interbaycinemasociety.org/light-movement-sound-lori-goldston/
May 21st, Shedding, MIRE Nantes, France
Stills from Shedding
10 August, Shedding in MIFF , Melbourne International film festival
https://miff.com.au/program/film/shedding
July 14th-30th, UCA James Hockey Gallery. Exhibition cycles and sequences in animation.
loop of Deliquesce with live sound by Jamie Dobson at UCA
July 5-26 Spinning in Close Up Year 20, Close Up Cinema
https://www.contactscreenings.co.uk
April
‘Making a Scene’, Launderette, Bristol : a chance to try out my unlikeness series as a multi screen installation.
Installation view from the Unlikeness series.
April 4th, Not (a) part, FAMU Akademie, Prague
MARCH
March 4th, SSS in ‘Be Water my Friend: an Animation Intervention’, as part of the Kota Ezawa exhibition: ‘Here and There – Now and Then’, curated by Meghana Bisineer at Fort Mason Centre for Arts and Culture, with SFMOMA.
March 7th, Shedding in ‘Transgressions’, at Tricky Women Animation Festival, Vienna.
March 8th, Shedding in ‘Transgressions’, Filmclub, Bolzano, Italy
March 16th, Not (a)part in Images, Seoul
March 19th, Small Things Moving in Unison in This is Film, 2025 @ Eye Film Museum, Amsterdam
March 21st, Shedding at Association Monoquini, Bordeaux
March 25th, Small Things Moving in Unison, curator Karel Doing, in Ruins and Resilience @ 63rd Ann Arbor Film Festival, Michigan US.
March 29th , Talk with BEEF at Watershed Cinema on Chantal Akerman’s Dis Moi
April
Lori Goldston + Interbay Cinema Society Films
https://www.cubecinema.com/programme/event/cinematic-symbiosis,14558/
2024
Not (a) part in Film Talks (A Touring Programme of Experimental Film)
Film Talks: 15 Conversations on Experimental Cinema, edited by Andrew Vallance and Simon Payne, is a collection of unique conversations on experimental cinema, involving a range of international film and video makers from the United Kingdom, Europe and North America. The book represents a snapshot of diverse ways that several practitioners have come to think about the field of experimental cinema, in relation to other art forms, moving image culture at large, and wider social issues. This touring film programme (in May 2024) features over twenty 16mm films and video works by several of the artists who feature in Film Talks, drawing out new ideas and connections that span different visions of cinema.
Dates and venues:
8th May – TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto (Programme 1)
9th May – Film Studies Center, University of Chicago (Programme 1)
10th May – Block Cinema, Northwestern University, Chicago (Programme 2)
13th May – Visions at Cinémathèque québécoise, Montréal (Programme 1)
14th May – Visions at Cinémathèque québécoise, Montréal (Programme 2)
16th May – Ad Hoc, Innis College, University of Toronto (Programme 2)
24th May – Close-Up Film Centre, London (Programme 1)
25th May – Close-Up Film Centre, London (Programme 2)
https://nwfilmforum.org/films/engauge-2024-live-music-film-person/
Engauge 2024 – Live Music and Film
December
Cinem parenthese, Brussels
July
July, 2023 Reexposure is screened in ‘Dwelling’, curated by Payne and Vallance
https://www.contactscreenings.co.uk/dwelling
- Not (a)part in celluloid Now, Chicago – https://celluloidnow.org/program/#thursday
- https://celluloidnow.org/2022-program/
- RE:EXPOSURE in ZÉRO DE CONDUITE, Rennes, France (http://assozdc.canalblog.com/pages/festival-obskura/39329792.html)
AUGUST
Performance of 33 Frames per Foot at 40 years of Light Cone
https://lightcone.org/en/news-757-scratch-expanded-10
talk at Spike Island:
2021
Film Talks: Live
A series of screening events related to the book Film Talks: 15 Conversations in Experimental Cinema.
The next few months will be busy in interesting ways for me, with talks, publications and screenings coming up:
December
- Re:exposure at MIRE, Nantes:
at https://www.mire-exp.org/evenement/laboratory-aim-density-l-a-d-1-et-2/
October
- BEEF respond to artist Ian Breakwell at Arnolfini October 8th/9th
https://arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/beef-do-breakwell/September 2021:
- Not(a)part at Roxie Theatre, San Francisco
- Not(a)part in ‘Inside this Shared Life’, Crossroads Film Festival, San Francisco
- Re:exposure in ‘No More Carefree Laughter’ , Crossroads Film Festival, San Francisco
James Stickel from REVOIR has requested that I send copies of Grainy Realism, for Revoir distribution. He paid me this compliment: I found your episode of the ‘Into the Mothlight’ podcast quite enlightening. Thanks for sharing your work with the world.
https://www.sfcinematheque.org/video-programs/crossroads-2021-program-7/
https://www.sfcinematheque.org/video-programs/crossroads-2021-program-5/
while forwarding details of these screenings to a friend in SF, I discovered a photo she had taken of me whilst in SF 5 years ago:
- Human Thaumotrope in Fields of View (https://www.contactscreenings.co.uk/fields-of-view) The Others, Hackney (https://www.contactscreenings.co.uk/fields-of-view?fbclid=IwAR1abZSDSDvymJVI8mNIOnltRdDWkOZs0f-uSSSzFF6ICm4sV_6Z2teQtKg
- Not(a)part at BIFF, Braziers International Film Festival
(here are BEEF members at Braziers)
- Re:exposure in 25FPS Zagreb
https://www.25fps.hr/en/news/competition-program-2021
- Publication of Emmanuelle Waeckerle’s A Direction Out There in which I’ve written an essay
- Publication of Conversations about Cinema in which I discuss practice(s) with Cathy Rogers
August 2021:
- Re:exposure in Riga, Latvia
https://processfest.lv/film-programmes/
July 2021:
- Noisy Licking Dribbling and Spitting will be screened at Barbican Cinema in ‘Raw Vision’
https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2021/event/splash-scratch-dunk-raw-vision-u
- Not(a)part in Obskura, Rennes
Jeudi 1 juillet 20h30
June 2021:
*I’ll be giving a talk on Animation and Biodiversity at Animafest Scanner Symposium for Contemporary Animation: https://www.zippyframes.com/index.php/animafest-scanner-symposium
* chairing a panel on CARE at Aberystwyth University ‘Film and Photochemical Practices conference
* nomination of Tanya Syed’s Delilah for Palace Film Festival, Bristol
* nomination of Savinder Baul for Arts Foundation Award
About Savinder’s work I said: Specific to animation is the imbuing of life to the otherwise inanimate. Savinder Bual’s animation feels very exciting to me, bringing to this field, not merely the illusion of motion, but a deconstruction of the mechanisms that sustain it. She has an impressive range of skills, with hands- on knowledge of physics and construction methods. Her animation machines and installations playfully peel back and exhibit, for all to see, that which is fundamental to cinema. Exposing these ordinarily concealed dimensions of the apparatus is what makes her work so successful as experimental animation. While so much contemporary animation pursues the digital new, Savinder pushes in another direction, investigating the laws of motion, physics and optics that preoccupied Renaissance artists. Yet, working through these ancient fascinations, her practice also engages very contemporary global questions and concerns.
May 31st: My strange old film Rash 1997, will be screened by Cinenova in Bodies and Boundaries. The context is very interesting and truly illuminates for me some of the ideas that were latent at the time of making it in 1997. I’ll also be doing a Q and A. Details soon. Here’s the copy:
Bodies and Boundaries is a two day online screening event in collaboration with feminist film distribution company Cinenova. Six films from the Cinenova archives will be shown, each linked by their investigatory considerations of female bodily autonomy and the lack thereof. The selection spans experimental, documentary, autobiographical, animation & fiction filmmaking styles, each anatomising the ways in which the female body has faced continual frontiers; political and biological, physical and metaphorical. Bodies and Boundaries probes binary categories of innocence and cruelty, purity and contamination, desire and repulsion, life and death. We are delighted to take on the role of caretaker, mindfully moving female artists’ work from private to public territory. The programme aims to uphold the unceasing importance of providing a platform for working/living female artists in a realm that has under-served them throughout history.
2020
*
podcast discussion of experimental film with Daniel Adams
* Exhibition of Re:exposure (2020) in ‘A Picture of Health’, Arnolfini, Bristol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPbYpCfnRp4
* Screening of Not(a)Part, Athens Film Festival, Ohio
* ‘Cartes de Visites’ – BEEF at Centre of Gravity, Bristol
*Screening of Primal in ‘Optical Sound, Tracked’ programme at Cinemateket, Oslo, Norway
*Screening of Not (a) part at Rotterdam Film Festival
*Screening of Noisy Licking, Dribbling & Spitting in Slippery, Sticky, Wet programme at Holden Gallery, Manchester
*Screening of Noisy Licking, Dribbling & Spitting for Animating Truth(s) programme at Vienna Artweek
*Screening of Not (a) part at Independent Film Show, Naples, Italy
2019
*Screening of Stacking in The Painted Animation, Edge of Frame programme curated by Edwin Rostron for London International Animation Festival
*Screening of Not (a) part in ‘Natures Binary’ programme at Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film, Video and Music Festival, Malaysia
*Screening of Noisy Licking, Dribbling and Spitting at Black Box Life Week, Newcastle
*Screening of Not (a) part at Engauge Experimental Film Festival, Seattle, USA
*Screening of Not (a) part at 25 FPS Festival, Zagreb, Croatia
*Screening of Not (a) part at Under the Radar Film Festival, Vienna
*Screening of Not (a) part at Bideodromo International Experimental Film & Video Festival, Spain
*In conversation at Anthology Film Archives, Jonas Mekas: Reframing the Archive at Watershed, Bristol
2018
*Screening of Small Things Moving in Unison at London International Animation Festival; Abstract Showcase
*Screenings of Small Things Moving in Unison and Noisy Licking, Dribbling and Spitting at Punto y Raya Abstract Film Festival, Wroclaw, Poland in the British Panorama
*Screening of Small Things Moving in Unison at Caraboo Projects; Watching Limbo exhibition, Bristol
*Screening of Small Things Moving in Unison in Vivienne Dick’s But Still, Like Dust, I’ll Rise (after Maya Angelou) at Galway Arts Centre, Ireland
*Screening of Small Things Moving in Unison at Edinburgh International Film Festival
*Live 16mm performance of adapted film Agitations at Whitstable Biennale ‘Resisting Expectations’ programme with Analogue Ensemble
*Inaugural screening of Small Things Moving in Unison, for ‘Voyages Elsewhere’ programme at Close Up Cinema, Shoreditch, London
*Screening of Sobbing, Spitting, Scratching and in-conversation as part of ‘Holy Fluids’ programme at Union Docs Center for Documentary Art, New York, USA
2017
*Screening of Primal at Crossroads Film Festival, San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art
*Screening of Rash at Monstra Animation, Lisbon
*Athens Ohio Film Festival (2017)
2016
* Screening of Rash, and in-conversation at ‘From Reel to Real: Women, Feminism and the London Film-makers’ Co-operative’
*Artist Talk at Edges: Animation Seminar at Whitechapel Gallery, London
*Screening of Noisy Licking, Dribbling and Spitting at Flatpack Festival, Birmingham
*Screening of Stacking at Edge of Frame, London
*Contact Film Festival (2016)
*Edinburgh Film Festival (2016)
*Visions in the Nunnery (2016)
*Tate Modern: From Reel to Real (2016)
2015
*Parts & Labour, Animate Touring (2015)
*London Short Film Festival (2015)
*Cornerhouse Artist Film DVD; ICA, London (2015)
*Alchemy Film Festival (April, 2015)
2014/13
*‘Explorative Sensoriums in Film and Video’, Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol (2014)
*Bicycle Tyre Track (16mm/performance) in ‘Assembly’ at Tate Britain (2014)
*Exploding Cinema (2013)
Vicky Smith 