THE acclaimed Scottish artist Rachel Maclean is to make a new feature length film to mark a century of the right to vote for women.
Described as "part horror, part movie, part comedy", Make Me Up is being made by Maclean - who represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale - with the arts organisation NVA and Hopscotch Films.
It will be partially set in the modern ruin of St Peter's Seminary in Cardross, which is being turned into a cultural centre by NVA.
Make Me Up is inspired by suffragette protest, including the attack by Mary Richardson on The Rokeby Venus: in 1914 she slashed Velazquez’s nude depiction of the goddess with a meat cleaver.
The new film "imagines a dystopian future where a group of women are trapped in a cruel reality TV style competition set within the brutal modern interior of St Peter's Seminary. Here voting is not a liberation – it’s a harsh judgement the contestants must face."
Make Me Up is NVA’s first external commission linked to St Peter’s Seminary.
Maclean said: “I'm delighted to have the opportunity to explore the excitements and complications of contemporary feminism.
"Make Me Up is my most ambitious and longest film to date and I'm so excited to be working with such accomplished production companies and arts organisations on this project."
Make Me Up is part of Represent, a series of artworks inspired by the Representation of the People Act 1918.
The film also sits as a centre piece within the inaugural year of NVA’s New Agora, an annual series of digital artworks and public events.
The New Agora will provide an "open platform that will consider issues affecting humanity today".
The 2018 programme will focus on the theme of Representation.
More details will be announced in the spring.
Make Me Up will be screened throughout the UK and then broadcast by the BBC in 2018.
Angus Farquhar, Creative Director of NVA said: "The film will be an important statement on the last century, 100 years on from some women first getting the right to vote in this country.
"NVA will be exploring these ideas in depth through this year’s New Agora programme of debate, discussion and digital installations.
"To reflect the shocking divides and incredible convergences that define human experience today, the New Agora will offer a radical digital and physical space where everyone can speak without reprimand or censure.”
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