2002. Video, 20 mins (extract A - Because)
President Bush's 2002 "Axis of Evil" speech, arranged in alphabetical order.
Local Paper (Wilhelmsburger Wochenblatt)
2007. 163 mounted digital photographs
The attempt to meet and photograph all of the people mentioned by name in one edition of a local newspaper from Hamburg. From the politicians on the front pages to Günter, looking for a new partner in the small ads. A Hamburg-Mapping project made in collaboration with the Galerie für Landschaftskunst.
2006. 18 mins, 2 screen video installation
A two-screen installation that explores the hidden split-second judgements we form of other people. Filmed with 30 strangers over two days in Dalston, East London. Co-directed with James Price. Commissioned by the Lightsurgeons.
'Repairing Lebanon'
2007. Digitally manipulated photographs.
Digitally repaired photographs taken in Lebanon after the 2006 conflict with Israel.
2006. 4x3min Videos. Three-Minute Wonder, Channel 4.
A series of films. We toured Britain in a camper van, driving from London to the Pennines and filmed portraits of 471 strangers along the way. The portraits are arranged in order according to age, length of relationship, yearly income and stage of pregnancy. Made with James Price. Production Company: Fulcrum TV.
Bio
Lenka Clayton was born in England in 1977 in a small village and grew up by the sea. She works as an artist and documentary maker and more often in the area inbetween.
Lenka's work sets out to examine and question the naturally occurring order of things using organising systems and interventions to disrupt accepted modes of language and patterns of behaviour. She is interested in our shared experience of the judgements we derive from the authority of language. In the way we understand the world through documentation and how once produced that document becomes a shorthand for the original event. And in the simple question how do we live and why?
Her work is informed by idealistic movements such as Mass Observation, the attempt begun in the confused political climate of 1930's Britain to canvas and analyse the opinions of the "man in the street", towards a better understanding of society. And by the work of social historians such as Studs Terkell, who in his 1972 publication "Working" collected together the testimonies of 128 ordinary Chicago residents and asked them what they do all day and how they feel about it.
Lenka Clayton attempts to reframe and expose situations we think we understand and so do not question. Situations such as President Bush's notorious 2002 Axis of Evil speech, a speech that it is impossible to listen to without being influenced by the political rhetoric, the studied gestures and seductive rhythm of the editing, which she rearranged in alphabetical order.
Lenka has collaborated with people across the disciplines of art, film, television, music and dance. Her work has been shown internationally in exhibitions, film festivals and on television. She is currently completing a project in Hamburg in which she is trying to meet and photograph the 329 people named in an edition of a local newspaper.
