• Artist's VITA (pdf) • Karen L. Schiff "Fragment Fiesta" (link) • Tom Gunning, Introduction to AC's    This Is Called Moving: A Critical Poetics of Film  (pdf) • Gary Morris, "Abigail Child's B/Side" (pdf) • Charles Borkhuis, "Abigail Child" (pdf)

 

Abigail Child is a film and video maker whose work in
montage and sound/image relations pushes the envelope of
film/video with humor and ephemeral beauty. Her films
explore mixed genres and strategies for rewriting narrative,
as well as investigating public space through memory and
history.

Recently, Child has turned her signature vertical
montage to installation, creating prismatic interruptive and
haunting narratives at galleries across the country and world.
These include The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota,
(March 2006); Philosophy Box, New York City, (June 2005);
Radcliffe Institute, Agassiz House (May 2006); and in
Manchester, Leeds, Norwalk and Sheffield UK this fall
and winter 2007-08 as part of the “Dziga Vertov Project”.

Child began filmmaking in 1970 as a documentarian,
producing seven independent 16mm documentaries between
1970 and 1976, among them the award-winning Game (1972)
and Between Times (1975). In the mid 70s, Child began to
produce experimental work, culminating in her series Is This
What You Were Born For?, which includes the films Prefaces
(1981), Mutiny (1983), Both (1988), Perils (1986), Covert Action (1984), Mayhem (1987), and Mercy (1989).

In the 90s, she turned to an investigation of public spaces, with
B/side (1996) and Below The New: A Russian Chronicle (1999)
which was shot in St. Petersburg Russia. Her films in the
21st century include Surface Noise (2000), Dark Dark (2001),
Where The Girls Are (2002), Cake And Steak (2004), The Future
Is Behind You (2004), To and No Fro (2005) and Mirror World
(2006). Her feature documentary ON THE DOWNLOW (2007),
an intimate look at a little-viewed underground scene,
premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival 2007, and was
broadcast on LOGO this summer. Child is completing
SURF AND TURF (2008), the third part of her Suburban Trilogy.
Her works range in length from 5 to 70 minutes.

Child is, as well, the author of a number of critical articles and several books of poetry (A Motive for Mayhem, Mob,
Scatter Matrix, Artificial Memory most recently) with a new
critical book from University of Alabama Press: This Is Called
Moving: A Critical Poetics of Film (2005). Both poetry and
critical texts have appeared in a number of anthologies, including Moving Borders (Talisman Press, 1997), From the Other Side of
the Century (Sun and Moon Press, 1994), and Resurgent: An Anthology of Women's Writing (Southern Illinois Press, 1992).

 

Child's films and videos have won many awards and have
been shown in retrospectives in conjunction with the New Museum
at Anthology Film Archives (New York), Torino Film
Festival (Italy), ICA (London), Mercer Union Gallery (Toronto),
The Collective For Living Cinema (New York), The San
Francisco Cinematheque, Frameline Film Festival
(California), and most recently at Harvard University
Cinematheque (November 2007). The work has officially been selected for the Oberhausen Film Festival, Visions du Reel,
Nyon, the London, Berlin and Rotterdam International Film
Festivals, Pesaro Film Festival (Italy), the New York Film
Festival and Video Sidebar, the Latin American International
Short Film Festival (Toronto), and World Wide Video Festival
(Den Haag)-among many others.

 

Child is the recipient of a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, a
Fulbright Fellowship (Russia), a Guggenheim Foundation
Fellowship, a Ford Media Grant, an NEA Media and Interarts
Grant, a Massachusetts Arts Council Grant, an AFI Independent Filmmakers Grant, multiple grants from the New York State
Council on the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts,
the Jerome Foundation, and the LEF Foundation. She has
received as well, multiple residential fellowships from the
MacDowell Colony and Yaddo.

 

Child studied History & Literature at Radcliffe College (Magna
cum laude) and graduated with an MFA from Yale University
School of the Arts (Honors). She has taught film/video
production and history at various schools, including NYU,
Massachusetts College of Art, The Art Institute of San
Francisco, Sarah Lawrence and Hampshire College.
Between Jan 2000-June 2005, she was Chair of
Film /Animation at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston. She is currently Senior Faculty. Child was on
sabbatical 06-07 and lives in NYC.