Jo Lawrence
Jo Lawrence’s films integrate stop motion animation, puppetry, photography and mixed media elements. During her first animation residency at Bradford’s National Media Museum Jo developed ‘Glow’, the film was commissioned by Channel 4 and screened in 2007. In 2008 she was Digital Media Artist in residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where she began development of ‘Glover’. The film was produced in response to research of two items in the museums collections – the medieval Ebstorf map and an exquisite pair of sixteenth century gloves.
Films often refer to transformation of some kind, themes that resurface continually include death, science, and fashion , and anything that offers the potential of a dark, humorous sense of the uncanny.
All her films have been screened widely at animation festivals and ‘Glover’ was nominated for inclusion in the finals of the British Animation Awards. The production of Pavementopera which was commissioned for Tate Britain (Tate Late ’09 ) has been followed in 2012 by ‘Barnet Fair’ ( online and museum installation ) for the National Media Museum and ‘Ylem’; an Animate Projects/ Lupus Films commission for Channel 4’s Random Acts which also won the Screengrab Media Award 2012.
In 2014 Jo was commissioned to produce the sting for Bradford Animation Festival, and The Land of Lace (an animated digital opera) was produced for Mahogany Opera and her most recent residency at Four Corners Gallery resulted in her latest film, ’The woman who owns the sun’.