Abigail Child has been at the forefront of experimental media and writing since the 1980s, having completed more than fifty film/video works and installations, and written 6 books. An acknowledged pioneer in montage, Child addresses the interplay between sound and image, to make, in the words of LA Weekly: “brilliant exciting work…a vibrant political filmmaking that’s attentive to form.” Her films, compulsive visual and aural legerdemain, have been widely awarded and shown internationally. Her major projects include Is This What You Were Born For?: a 9 year, 7-part work; B/Side: a film that negotiates the politics of internal colonialism; 8 Million: a collaboration with avant-percussionist Ikue Mori that re defines "music video"; The Suburban Trilogy: a modular digi-film that prismatically examines a politics of place and identity; and MirrorWorlds: a multiscreen installation that incorporates parts of Child's "Subtitled" series to explore narrative excess. Her most recent work is a trilogy of feature films, including UNBOUND, an imaginary 'home movie' of the life of Mary Shelley, teenage author of Frankenstein; ACTS & INTERMISSIONS: on the life of anarchist Emma Goldman in America; and the last, ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES which explores human-machine interactions in the 21st century.

Winner of the Rome Prize, a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships, the Stan Brakhage Award, as well as participating in two Whitney Biennials, (1989 and 1997) Child has had numerous retrospectives worldwide. These include Buena Vista Center in San Francisco, Anthology Film Archive (in conjunction with The New Museum, NY), Harvard Cinematheque, Reservoir, Switzerland, EXIS Korea, the Cinoteca in Rome and Image Forum in Tokyo. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art NY, the Whitney Museum, Centre Pompidou, Museo Reina Sofia, and in numerous international film festivals, including New York, Rotterdam, Locarno and London. Harvard University Cinematheque has created an Abigail Child Collection dedicated to preserving and exhibiting her film work.

Child is also the author of six books of poetry (A Motive for Mayhem, Scatter Matrix and Mouth To Mouth among them) and a book of critical writings: THIS IS CALLED MOVING: A Critical Poetics of Film from University of Alabama Press (2005). Child is emerita professor at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1999-2016), Tufts University. As head of the department for 9 of her 16 years, Child has been instrumental in building an interdisciplinary media/film program; her work and practice have inspired several generations of younger artists.

Artist’s Statement

The desire: to explode narrative and preconceived notions. I use strategies of asymptotic convergence, vertical montage, a-harmonic weave, digital archive, language mis-translation, sonata look-a-likes, sound and noise juxtapositions— jolly and foreboding. We live in a world cluttered with things, so it is important to go below and behind them, to re-contextualize the given and refresh it, to enlarge possibilities, and upset the powers that restrain us—whether exterior or interior.

The work consistently places disruption in conjunction with consumerist and pop culture, simultaneously eliciting the surrealist Americanism of a Bruce Conner, the cut-and-paste gestures of Hannah Hoch and the sensuousness of Sargent, alive to the makeup of the social body.

Contact achild@mindspring.com

Abigail Child's Artist VITA [pdf]

Karen L. Schiff, Fragment Fiesta [pdf]

Tom Gunning, Introduction to This Is Called Moving: A Critical Poetics of Film [pdf]

Gary Morris, Abigail Child's B/Side [pdf]

Charles Borkhuis, Abigail Child [pdf]

Selected Works in Film, Video + New Media

(Director, Producer, Camera & Editor unless indicated)

• 2023- Turangalîla Montage Feature [pre-development]
• 2021- PRECIPICE (working title) Film on climate change on South Shore Nova Scotia.
• 2020 ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES, feature documentary on robotics research. Music: Floyd Fisher & Hiraishi Hirokazu. (73 min)
• 2020 BLUE EDIT, experimental sound/image montage.(15min)
• 2017-20 LA LUCHA [THE STRUGGLE], experimental film exploring 100 years of police brutality. (5min)
• 2017 ACTS & INTERMISSIONS (aka Emma's Party).Music: Andrea Parkins. (60 min)
• 2014 SALOME, commission for an opera. Collaboration w/ Adeena Karasick and composer Frank London
• 2014 VIS A VIS. b/w. 25 min. 16mm.
• 2013 UNBOUND, a hacked version of A Shape of Error, Scenes from the Life of Mary Shelley. (70 min). Zeena Parkins, composer
• 2013 ELSA, merdelamerdelamer, 3.5 min short on Baroness Elsa Von Freytag Loring-hoven
• 2012 A SHAPE OF ERROR, Feature film on Mary and Percy Shelley in form of imaginary home movies. (70 min).
• 2011 THE SUBURBAN TRILOGY, prismatic feature inc. Cake +Steak, Surf +Turf. The Future, film and dv (70 min)
• 2011 RIDING THE TIGER: Songs from Capitalist China.(Feature) Digital Video
• 2010 HACKING EMPIRE, film and dv. single screen version of L'Impero Invertito
• 2010 L'IMPERO INVERTITO: 4 screen installation for Rome Academy April; also at Romanian Academy, Rome: June
• 2009 IF I CAN SING A SONG ABOUT LIGATURES. Digital Video. w/ Nada Gordon (part of FOREIGN FILM SERIES)
• 2008-11 SURF AND TURF: Part 3. of THE SUBURBAN TRILOGY. 16mm and Digital Video
• 2007 SCENE 28: Pingyao China (digital) for Dziga Vertov Project (Installation on Tour)
• 2007 On The Downlow. Dvcam to Beta. Abigail Child: Director, Producer, Editor; Arthur Jafa: Camera; Floyd Fisher: Music; Yael Bitton: Editing. Reviews: Directors Spotlight (pdf); Four Short Reviews; divinecaroline.com review; divinecaroline.com/interview
• 2007 THE PARTY (digital). Editor: Yael Bitton + AC; Camera: Robert Banks+AC
• 2006 MIRROR WORLDS Installation, includes Dark Dark and To And No Fro simultaneous projection.
• 2006 Mirror World. 16mm to dvd. With Gary Sullivan (part of FOREIGN FILM SERIES) By Desire. dvcam. 3-screen installation<
• 2006 BY DESIRE (digital) 3-screen installation
• 2005 To And No Fro. 16mm to dvd. With Monica de la Torre. (part of FOREIGN FILM SERIES)
• 2004 The Future Is Behind You. 20 min. Film transferred to video.
• 2004 Cake And Steak. 20min. Film transferred to video. Premiered Oberhausen. Shown as single-channel and multiple-screen projections. Includes Where the Girls Are and Blonde Furs
• 2003 The Milky Way. Projected film installation version of 16 mm Dark Dark.
• 2002 Subtalk. Digital video (with Eric Rosenzveig and Benton Bainbridge).
• 2001 Dark Dark. Part 2 of How the World Works. Film (16 mm, b/w, sound, 16:20 min.)
• 2000 Surface Noise. Part 1 of How the World Works. Film (16 mm, color and b/w, sound, 18 min.).
• 1999 Below the New. Video. (High-8 and l6mm original, b/w and color, sound, 25 min.)
• 1999 CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (script w/ M. Ragona)
• 1998 Her Thirteenth Year. Script (with Melissa Ragona).
• 1996 B/side. Film (16 mm, color and b/w, sound, 40 min.).
• 1995 THROUGH THE LOOKING LASS (w/ L. Champagne)
• 1994 DINKINSVILLE (Video)
• 1993 SONGS (interactive video performance) w/B. Bainbridge, Vicky Funari + Ikue Mori
• 1993 8 Million. Video, with music by Ikue Mori (Super-8 film and high-8 original, b/w and color, sound, 25 min.).
• 1991 SWAMP SONGS Video (with Sarah Schulman; High-8, color, 25 min.)
• 1989 Mercy. Part 7 of Is This What You Were Born For? Film.(l6mm, color, sound, 10 min.)
• 1988 Both. Part 3 of Is This What You Were Born For?Film.(l6mm,
  b/w, silent 3.5 min.)
• 1987 Mayhem. Part 6 of Is This What You Were Born For? Film (16 mm, b/w, sound, 20 min.).
• 1986 Perils. Part 4 of Is This What You Were Born For? Film (16 mm, b/w, sound, 5 min.).
• 1984 Covert Action. Part 5 of Is This What You Were Born For? Film (16 mm, b/w, sound, 10 min.).
• 1983 Mutiny. Part 2 of Is This What You Were Born For? Film. (16 mm, b/w and color, sound, 11 min.).
• 1981 Prefaces. Part 1 of Is This What You Were Born For? Film 16 mm, b/w and color, sound, 10 min.).
• 1979 Ornamentals. Film (16 mm, silent).
• 1979 Pacific Far East Line. Film (16 mm, b/w and color, silent, 15 min.).
• 1978 Peripeteia II. Film (16 mm, color, silent, 11 min.).
• 1978 Daylight Test Section. Film (16 mm, color, silent, 4 min.).
• 1977 Peripeteia I. Film (16 mm, color, silent, 10 min.).
• 1977 Some Exterior Presence. Film (16 mm, color, silent, 10 min.).
• 1975 Tar Garden. Film (16 mm, color, sound, 50 min.).
• 1973 Mother Movie. Film (16 mm, color, sound, 5 min.).
• 1972 Game. Film (16 mm, b/w, sound, 40 min.).
• 1970 Except the People. Film (16 mm, color, sound, 20 min.).