Vicky Smith employs experimental animation and performance to explore bodily relations to a broader ecology of fragility and tenacity. ‘Many of Smith’s films start with embodied performances, which expose not only her physical labour and means of production, but also the specificity and vulnerability of her body and materials. She invites us to consider the uneasy imbrication of authorship, embodiment, and analogue film as anchors of meaning at the present historical moment.’ Tess Takahashi (2024) in The Palgrave Handbook of Experimental Film. Recent screenings, performances and commissions include: in 2025, ‘Be Water my Friend: an Animation Intervention’, Fort Mason Centre Arts and Culture, SF; ‘Transgressions’, Tricky Women Animation Festival, Vienna; ‘Tenacity’, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Michigan US; ‘Imagery’: Screening of contemporary experimental film & documentary, Seoul, Korea. Previous key exhibitions include We Shine, Portsmouth; Light Cone, Paris 40 Years; Splash, Scratch, Dunk!, Barbican Cinema, London(2021); A Picture of Health, Arnolfini, Bristol (2021); From Reel to Real, Tate Modern & Anthology, NY (2016); Assembly, Tate Britain (2014) and C4TV (1990).
Her work is discussed in recent publications: Hosea, B. (2019) The Crafty Animator; Knowles, K. (2020) Experimental Film and Photochemical Practices and Takahasi, Tess (2024) Disarticulating Authorship: Vicky Smith’s Direct Animations, in Palgrave Handbook of Experimental Film. Her writing has been published by Millenium Film Journal (2024); Animation Studies 2.0. (2024), (2021) and she received the McLaren/Lambart award for Best Scholarly Book in Animation for her co-edited volume, Experimental & Expanded Animation: New Perspectives and Practices (2018).
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