Conversation
2006 / video 7 min / Collaboration with James Price
"She looks very passionate, would make a very good wife," says a stranger describing the face of another stranger.
The film Conversation makes audible the usually private split-second judgements and stories we tell ourselves prompted purely by the faces of unknown passers-by.
Conversation was filmed in the basement of a cinema on a busy street in the East End of London. Twenty eight of the twenty nine interviewees were strangers that we met on the street that morning and all were unknown to one another.
It's a revealing study of how we readily project our fears and hopes onto people we don't know. What does a face really tell you about a person and what does it tell you about your own preconceptions and prejudices?
Synopsis from HOTDOCS, Canada
Conversation was originally a 2-screen installation exhibited in Articulated on London's South-Bank in late 2006, curated by The Light Surgeons. The split screen video has toured extensively and been shown at festivals including Britdoc, UK, Hotdocs, Canada, PDX, Oregon, USA, and the Iranian International Documentary Festival, Tehran.