Dr. Patti Gaal-Holmes

Patti is an artist/filmmaker and historian, Senior Lecturer in Film Production and a member of the Transnational Screens (Routledge) Editorial Board. She teaches on undergraduate and postgraduate units and coordinates the BA Film History Culture and Contemporary Film units, as well as teaching about Visualisation and how research informs practice. Patti completed a BA (Hons) Visual Art and AHRB-funded MA Painting at Winchester School of Art before commencing with an AHRC-funded research scholarship in experimental film as part of the ‘1970s British Cinema’ (University of Portsmouth). Publications include the monograph ‘A History of 1970s Experimental Film: Britain’s Decade of Diversity’ (2015, Palgrave Macmillan).

• 2020 AUB RKT funding for ‘Valdivia: framing the future through the past’ (Germany project)
• 2018 AUB RKT funding for ‘into the frameless distance’ (Hungary project)
• 2015 Writer-in-Residence, Hosking Houses Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon – ‘Liliesleaf’ project
• 2014 Writer-in-Residence, Hosking Houses Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon – 1970s film book
• 2013 Arts Council England Grant – ‘Questions of Home’ solo exhibition, Aspex Gallery
• 2012 Arts Council England Grant – ‘R&D of film practice’ with no.w.here (London) Residency
• 2006/09 A.H.R.C. award for Postgraduate Research (PhD)
• 2003/04 A.H.R.B. award for Postgraduate study (MA Painting)

Patti is an artist/filmmaker and historian, Senior Lecturer in Film Production and a member of the Transnational Screens (Routledge) Editorial Board. Her research-based practice investigates relationships between film and photography, with a particular interest in analogue processes. Questions related to the meaning of exile and 'home' underpin investigations, informed by her cross-cultural identity, historical and post/colonial discourses, as well as Stuart Hall’s belief that ‘identity is never singular but is multiply constructed across intersecting and antagonistic discourses, practices and positions’ (2017: 23). Recent work in film and photography investigates personal and political histories, offering up a rich seam of material for excavation. An interest in ‘processes of thinking’ between theory and practice are integral to her methodological approaches, with the presentation of conference papers, articles or essays forming an integral part of the dissemination process. These research interests are central in informing her teaching of film history/practice and the visualisation of ideas for film-making. Publications include the monograph, A History of 1970s Experimental Film (2015, Palgrave), and the experimental film Liliesleaf Farm Mayibuye (2016), screened at the 60^th BFI Film Festival.

• 2021 (forthcoming) ‘into the frameless distance’: Itinerant Research for Photo/filmic Practices’ in Turina and Kiki Tianqi Yu (eds), Essay Film & Narrative Techniques: Screen-Writing Non-fiction, (Intellect).
• 2019 ‘Process & Temporality: Chance & (Al)chemical Traces invigorating Materiality & Content in the films of Péter Forgács, Penny Siopis and Ben Rivers’, International Journal of Film and Media Arts, Lisbon.
• 2016 ‘1970s British Experimental Film: Images in Shadows And Light’ for Moving Image Review and Art Journal (MIRAJ), Intellect.
• 2016 ‘1970s Experimental Films: Then and Now’ in ‘Essays on Contemporary British Experimental Film and Video’ by Simon Payne (ed) in Senses of Cinema (online journal).
• 2015 (monograph) A History of 1970s Experimental Film: Britain’s Decade of Diversity, Palgrave Macmillan.
• 2015 ‘Nelson Mandela: A Life of Perseverance and Inspiration’ for The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism by Immanuel Ness and Saër Maty Ba (eds), Palgrave Macmillan
• 2014 Review: BFI release of ‘Riddles of the Sphinx’ (1977) by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, commissioned by Viewfinder magazine (BUFVC), No. 94, March 2014, pp. 30.
• 2013 Review of The Nine Muses (John Akomfrah, 2010), Transnational Cinemas journal, Intellect/Routledge, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 136-39.
• 2013 ‘Parameters of Practice: Annabel Nicolson’s 1970s Work’ - exhibition information for ‘Film in Space’, Camden Arts Centre, London (Dec 2012-Feb 2013)
• 2012 ‘De-Westernizing film through experimental practice’ in De-Westernizing Film Studies by (eds) Saër Maty Bâ and Will Higbee, Routledge, pp. 193 – 199.
• 2012 ‘(Re)calling ‘Home’: An Artist’s Negotiation and (Re)negotiation between Memory, Geography, History and Language’ in Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture, Intellect, Vol 3 Issue 2, pp. 201 – 212.

• 2020 (postponed due to Covid) ‘Narrations of discovery from the mobile darkroom & specimen laboratory on the Valdivia deep-sea expedition (1898/9, Germany)’ for CFP: Darkrooms and Representations: Histories of Photography, Film and Exploration Conference, National Maritime Museum, Royal Museums Greenwich.
• 2020 (July) The Ecologies of research, AUB 2020 Research Conference.
• 2019 ‘in search of ghosts in the city of (no) memory & across borderlines’, 20 x 20 event, Gasp Gallery, Portsmouth.
• 2019 Screening & Salon discussion on ‘in search of ghosts in the city of (no) memory’, BEEF Residency, Bristol.
• 2018, Chair on Soufra panel discussion, Journeys International Festival, No 6 Cinema, Portsmouth.
• 2018 ‘into the frameless distance’ talk for Journeys International Festival, Portsmouth.
• 2018 ‘grainy, blurry and out-of-focus’: into the frameless distance to the city of (no) memory’ for ECSTATIC TRUTH III: MAKING SENSE: Between Fantasy and Fact, Universidade Lusófona, Lisbon.
• 2017 Panel discussion for ‘Culture & Mobility: Displacement, Adaptation and Creativity seminar’, Journeys International Festival, Portsmouth.
• 2017 ‘Excavations for Opening up Histories: Liliesleaf Farm Mayibuye’, AUB Research Conference.
• 2015 In-conversation with Laura Mulvey (Penthesilea, 1974) Bristol Radical Film Festival (October).
• 2015 ‘Excavations for Histories’, Autoethnography Learning from Stories Conference, Brighton University.
• 2015 Book launch (with public lecture) for A History of 1970s Experimental Film: Britain’s Decade of Diversity, part of Cinema Born Again season, British Film Institute (BFI), London.
• 2015 ‘1970s Films: Images in Shadows and Light’, lecture: Pluralities Symposium, Saint Martins, London.
• 2014 ‘Liliesleaf Farm’ for Cultures of Damaged Societies: from Post-Conflict Resolution to Intercultural
• Dialogue Conference (International Society for Cultural History), Monash University, South Africa.
• 2014 ‘Opening up the Archive: the Problems and Uses of Nostalgia’, Cultures of Commemoration
• Conference, University of Portsmouth.
• 2013 ‘Certitudes of Belonging and Embodied Excavations’ for Crossroads: Europe, Migration and Culture Conference, University of Copenhagen.
• 2013 ‘into the frameless distance: concepts and experiments’, paper for Mieke Bal: Migratory Aesthetics: Reading Moving Objects Master Class, University of Copenhagen.
• 2013 Panel discussion, ‘(Wo)Man with Mirror’, Apiary Studios, London.
• 2013 In-Conversation ‘The Meaning of Home’ with Dr Marius Kwint et al, Aspex/University of Portsmouth.
• 2013 ‘Liliesleaf Farm’, Affect, Memory, and the Transmission of Trauma Symposium, Goldsmiths, London.
• 2012 ‘Excavations in Film & Fragments Lost in the Ether’, Migration, Memory and Place Conference, University of Copenhagen.
• 2012 ‘Liliesleaf Farm’, Maboneng Peace Week, Johannesburg, South Africa.
• 2012 ‘Notebooks of the Mind: the Art of Collaboration’ with Emily Barker, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth.
• 2009 ‘Annabel Nicolson’s 1970s Practice’, Narrative Exploration in Expanded Cinema, St Martins, London.
• 2009 ‘Some Acute Angles of Observation’, Wild Eye Film Conference, De Montfort University, Leicester.
• 2008 ‘Lis Rhodes and Sally Potter’, 1970s British Cinema Conference, University of Portsmouth.
• 2008 ‘Tea Project’, COLLECT II symposium and exhibition, University of Portsmouth.

• 2019 ‘into the frameless distance’ photography exhibited as part of Heimweh, Gasp Gallery, Portsmouth.
• 2018 Liliesleaf Farm Mayibuye (film/photographs), AUB Creative Exchange exhibition.
• 2017 ‘tea moth’ drawings in Moth Migration Project (curator Hilary Lorenz), Albuquerque, USA.
• 2016 ‘Liliesleaf Farm Mayibuye: Spectres of History’, Official Selection, BFI Film Festival, London.
• 2015 ‘on drinking tea to escape the noise of the world’ (exhibition and talk) for ‘Port City:
• Narratives of Migration’, Being Human Festival, University of Portsmouth.
• 2015 Film, Artists’ Book commission for ‘Space Interrupted’, Fort Brockhurst, Heritage Day weekend.
• 2014 Letters film for ‘The Tin Screen: no.w.here 10th Birthday’ screening, ICA London.
• 2014 Terraça del Ossos screening for ‘Loop the Loop’ (no.w.here & CineStar), St Ives.
• 2013 Blutrausch: Das Ende der Geschichte, screening for ‘Living Film’, no.w.here lab, London.
• 2013 ‘Questions of Home: Excavations in Film & Fragments Lost in the Ether’, ACE-funded solo
• exhibition: film, experimental photographs and artists’ books, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth.
• 2012 The Rains, screening at Visioneca Film Festival, Isle of Wight.
• 2011 Eight Films for ‘Home’ with Emily Barker (live film/music event), King’s Place, London.
• 2010 despite the snow, screening for Women’s Music & Films, October Gallery, London.
• 2010 The Lovers The Dreamers and Me, film screening for ‘Late at Tate’ Britain, London.
• 2009 winter’s tea, screening for 'Kinopravda: Fragments/Out-takes', Coventry.
• 2008 in dreams to return again, screening for Shot By the Sea Film Festival, Hastings.
• 2005 Alice: there was a party once, screening for ‘Super-8 Festival’, Bristol.