If you are interested in seeing current work please visit my site below.
http://louisadecossy.tumblr.com/
Friday, October 7, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
Support the Magdalene Survivors - Call for Justice
The following message is from Katherine O'Donnell in Ireland..
http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/dear_minister.htm
"I've a favour to ask - I'm writing in relation to the Justice for Magdalenes Campaign and I hope that you can put out the following message on as many lists that you can--
We want as many people as possible to contact Ministers -- in their offices, at their constituency office, by phone, email, twitter, facebook and ask them politely to do one simple thing.
"Dear Minister, please read the letter you received today from Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) prior to this week's Cabinet meeting. Thank you."
I attach a copy of the ministers' emails below--you can email one or more than one. Or check out: http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/dear_minister.htm
But please pass along to others who you think are supportive. And, if we could get each of our collective contacts to email three people, who in turn email three people, and so on, then the message will be heard.
Thanks to everyone for helping with this effort ... the goal here is to ensure that just one or two more ministers might speak at the Cabinet meeting and voice our perspective on this matter. We feel strongly that the tide is swinging our way and we want to respectfully push on ...
Katherine O'Donnell
Justice for Magdalenes
http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/
http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/dear_minister.htm
"I've a favour to ask - I'm writing in relation to the Justice for Magdalenes Campaign and I hope that you can put out the following message on as many lists that you can--
We want as many people as possible to contact Ministers -- in their offices, at their constituency office, by phone, email, twitter, facebook and ask them politely to do one simple thing.
"Dear Minister, please read the letter you received today from Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) prior to this week's Cabinet meeting. Thank you."
I attach a copy of the ministers' emails below--you can email one or more than one. Or check out: http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/dear_minister.htm
But please pass along to others who you think are supportive. And, if we could get each of our collective contacts to email three people, who in turn email three people, and so on, then the message will be heard.
Thanks to everyone for helping with this effort ... the goal here is to ensure that just one or two more ministers might speak at the Cabinet meeting and voice our perspective on this matter. We feel strongly that the tide is swinging our way and we want to respectfully push on ...
Katherine O'Donnell
Justice for Magdalenes
http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Mothers and daughters
I am drawing near to the opening of the gallery show and editing is about to release me form it's clutches. I could not possibly of imagined the adventure this work would be or the amount of introspection it would inspire. Revisiting a culture I adopted at the age of five, and one that was so limiting for a young woman has made me reexamine my own perceptions and attitudes.
Like the women in my film, my relationship with the culture that I was raised in is complex and while I have tried to divorce my own bias from the film, delivering my truth of a time and place I experienced has been really important in this process.
My mother's journey through Ireland has been something worth examining, and I have found that it has given structure to a narrative that is unwieldy and broad. Her path raises questions that I think all cultures could do to look at. Hopefully the film will convey these questions without providing answers or suggestions, just experience and history.
Like the women in my film, my relationship with the culture that I was raised in is complex and while I have tried to divorce my own bias from the film, delivering my truth of a time and place I experienced has been really important in this process.
My mother's journey through Ireland has been something worth examining, and I have found that it has given structure to a narrative that is unwieldy and broad. Her path raises questions that I think all cultures could do to look at. Hopefully the film will convey these questions without providing answers or suggestions, just experience and history.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The Second to Last Piece
Today we filmed my conversation with my mom, Teren de Cossy. We covered why she moved to Ireland, the places we lived there and the changes we witnessed together. Here are some images from the shoot, courtesy of Jim Cyb.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Watching and Learning
I have been voraciously consuming documentary films, with the aspiration that my editing practice would be reinvigorated. I'm simultaneously awed and intimidated by all the beautiful work I've seen and it has been helpful to remind me of the story I am telling.
The link is to a beautiful film by Chiara Clemente, it is a poetically shot documentary that pays homage to 6 female artists living and working in New York.
http://www.ourcitydreams.com/
The link is to a beautiful film by Chiara Clemente, it is a poetically shot documentary that pays homage to 6 female artists living and working in New York.
http://www.ourcitydreams.com/
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Audio
Looking at footage, writing and organizing cannot be done without the audio for me. Recording my own voice and working with the audio files is so much fun. I recorded a conversation on skype with my mom and it was such a laugh. The unscripted conversation is really what I'd like to explore more. The conversations then can become intervals between interviews and b roll can illustrate them also.
Finally a bit of a breakthrough!!!
Finally a bit of a breakthrough!!!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Bias and Working with Testimony
Since returning from Ireland I have been struggling with constructing my outline. I write daily, brainstorm, edit and compile data and yet my conclusions elude me. The desire to confine such complex issues within analysis is also not really fulfilling at this stage.
I have to ask the question of whether as a researcher and artist, I can present an argument and conclusion to such complex issues? While I have the ability to do this, for a variety of reasons I resist presenting biased date.
At this stage it becomes important to ask..
What is this project at it's root?
A collection and a glimpse, born form the desire to show positive change.
What is hard is that what I have found is dark, complex and truly unresolved. I hoped to show the positive changes that can happen when women unite and now all I can see is the living evidence of sexism. This is just the filter with which I am viewing the data at the moment and that is what I need to shift. To resolve the burn out I am currently feeling, I am going to edit some of the more joyful moments of my footage to music and see where that takes me and alternate that approach with writing the structure down,
Possibly the greatest lesson gained form this pursuit is finding that I am a researcher and an artist and that working with others lives in documentary form is incredibly challenging.
There are changes that have happened that are positive and by focusing more on these I hope to show that progress has occurred. That progress is in evolution. Questioning the progress I see is important and staying open to the truth is vital also.
Compiling my resources and interviewing people was my favorite part so far and this stage of working is work, a lot of hard work. I want to do these women's lives justice and that might be my current problem. I am not the one who gets to save anyone else and honestly these women don't need saving and neither do future generations, sometime during the last week I forgot that I am only the one asking questions!
Letting people speak for themselves in this film is really important and what I want to do is create an environment that is open and contemplative.
Handing over and trusting the process is once again what I need to return to.
Discovery is complicated, that is the thought I'll leave you with.. and this weekend I'll present some of my findings.
I have to ask the question of whether as a researcher and artist, I can present an argument and conclusion to such complex issues? While I have the ability to do this, for a variety of reasons I resist presenting biased date.
At this stage it becomes important to ask..
What is this project at it's root?
A collection and a glimpse, born form the desire to show positive change.
What is hard is that what I have found is dark, complex and truly unresolved. I hoped to show the positive changes that can happen when women unite and now all I can see is the living evidence of sexism. This is just the filter with which I am viewing the data at the moment and that is what I need to shift. To resolve the burn out I am currently feeling, I am going to edit some of the more joyful moments of my footage to music and see where that takes me and alternate that approach with writing the structure down,
Possibly the greatest lesson gained form this pursuit is finding that I am a researcher and an artist and that working with others lives in documentary form is incredibly challenging.
There are changes that have happened that are positive and by focusing more on these I hope to show that progress has occurred. That progress is in evolution. Questioning the progress I see is important and staying open to the truth is vital also.
Compiling my resources and interviewing people was my favorite part so far and this stage of working is work, a lot of hard work. I want to do these women's lives justice and that might be my current problem. I am not the one who gets to save anyone else and honestly these women don't need saving and neither do future generations, sometime during the last week I forgot that I am only the one asking questions!
Letting people speak for themselves in this film is really important and what I want to do is create an environment that is open and contemplative.
Handing over and trusting the process is once again what I need to return to.
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