Vicky Smith employs experimental animation and performance to explore bodily relations to a broader ecology of vulnerability. Her practice with analogue film, often enacted as live event, intends to engage cinema’s appeal to the whole body and evokes the sense of touch through haptic imagery. Methods of proximity and exposure emphasise the fragility of materials, with the body inscribed as gesture, trace and stain.
Screenings include: Raw Vision: Splash, Scratch, Dunk!, Barbican Cinema, London in Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty (2021); A Picture of Health, Arnolfini, Bristol (2021); Nunnery Gallery (2020); Rotterdam (2020); SF MOMA (2017); Union City Docs, NY (2015); Animate, Parts & Labour (2015); From Reel to Real, Tate Modern & Anthology, NY (2016); Assembly, Tate Britain (2014) and C4TV (1990).
Smith received the McLaren/Lambart Best Scholarly Book in Animation award for her co-edited volume, Experimental & Expanded Animation: New Perspectives and Practices (2018). Recent publications include: Hand Drawn and Non-Natural Colour (2021), Animation Studies 2.0. Her work is discussed by Elwes, C. (2015) Installation and the Moving Image; Hosea, B. (2019) The Crafty Animator; Jutz, G. (2019) Animating Truths: The Films of Maria Lassnig and Their Context (2019) and Knowles, K. (2020) Experimental Film and Photochemical Practices.