Kathryn Ferguson

0:14[Applause]

0:22hi everyone I'm a bit nervous so bear with me okay.

0:24So let me just work out how to use this again so lovely okay.

0:30So okay mine's going to sound very Earnest compared to all of these amazing speakers but I'll do my best I've been working as a film director since 2008 creating short films fashion films music videos and commercials over the years I've had the chance to work with some incredible musicians and Brands such as Nana Cherry Lady Gaga Nike and Khloe as well as my film making practice I also work as a fashion film research fellow at L College of fashion where I'm exploring this new genre film of film as it develops through both theory and practice I've also been working as a film curator and programmer for as long as I've been making films collaborating closely with the British Council the British fashion Council and Bird's ey view Film Festival as part of my research at lcf I'm currently creating my first featurelength documentary about the northern Irish abortion laws through the Aesthetics of protest and female activism so that's my intro get to it there you go to myself my work in the area of fashion film started in 2007 this is a bit of a smattering of what I've been at back then it was a genre in its infancy and to some degree in many ways still is when making my first films I worked with models and tried to create imagery using my understanding of fashion. But in new and interesting time-based visual ways whilst I was initially excited making this new type of work I very quickly became more and more uncomfortable with the paity of the models I was shooting and even the direction I was giving them myself I had a few light bulb moments whilst on set during this period I began to feel this style of film making was very restrictive and felt conflicted about the type of work I was turning out IE aesthetically driven short films without any real critical thought processes behind them looking back I suppose I was preconditioned to thinking that the accepted fashion image that I'd been exposed to my whole life was what I had to work with as a filmmaker due to this conflict about my work I decided to go back and study for a masters at the Royal College of Art in 2009 this was a really fruitful time as I started to think about this year potency and power of film and how I could create messages and communicate to an audience through my work I also realized the power of the fashion image and how on how to actually combine work that could you know the fashion image is amazing because it draws people in with the visual but I really wanted to Pack-A-Punch with a strong message whil whilst I had their attention and these two combined seemed like a really good way to go shortly after graduating I began to work with lots of Brands one of the first commissions I received was from selfridges I worked with the brand for a few years as a freelance director and realized really quickly that our ethos and approach to creativity aligned my early film projects with them covered subject subjects such as model Beauty ideals in the UK and even a film about the need for more visible female role models in the workplace these early projects LED have led to an amazing partnership between the self fores creative Direction team and I and this partnership's been pretty constant for the past four years and has led me working now inh house with the brand and all their film content within this role I direct most of their film campaigns and also commission out other filmmakers it's yeah it's been really amazing thing to have happened so the projects I'm going to look at tonight and the films I'm going to show you this evening are two from selfes and two that I'm really proud of there's lots that I'm not so much.

4:12But these two are ones that I'm happy with the first one I'm going to show you is one of the biggest ones I've had the chance to work on and was made in direct response to an initiative they launched last year called a gender and a gender was a fairly large concept space within the store that sold only genderless clothing and was a celebration of fashion without definition it was a big concept to respond to as a filmmaker and one I was very keen to get right I decided that I wanted to create a musically driven response as I felt and I I do feel that musicians have always used fashion to explore gender fluidity in very Progressive ways going right back to MC Jagger and the famous white dress in Hyde Park in 1969 the creative team and I carefully considered the choice of musicians whom we felt filled the brief to come up with a track that would really celebrate non-binary dressing as a result we ended up commissioning Dev Hines AKA blood orange and the original Buffalo Woman herself Nana Cherry we wanted to create a celebratory diverse and contemporary film.

5:18So I invited fellow director Alex Turvy to come on board and co-direct the film with me as I wanted our gender specific perceptions to jointly fuse and create a film. That's celebrated non-binary fashion in a striking and celebratory way we had a lot of incredible creative people involved in the making of This film.

5:37So it was quite a process and stitching it all together I wasn't sure if it was going if the whole thing was going to work at all right up until we delivered it on the 11th Hour as there were so many elements that were kept in the air at once throughout the whole couple of months production process we were lucky to have the American choreographer Ryan Heffington on board straight after he directed The FG Twigs roundhouse shows here in London and he was amazing and brought a lot of these incredible young London Progressive dancers with them from the from that show. So that was amazing and most exciting for us was casting our lead female protagonist we cast Harry nef the transgender model and actress to lead the large cast the casting for this film was also incredibly important as we wanted to feature people who said who felt a certain Affinity with the brief and identified with genderless ways of dressing therefore the final lineup was an Eclectic mix of our friends dancers and Shop floor staff from selfes if I can get to this you're here the shoot itself was nothing short of wild as we decided to create the whole performance in one take it was an exhilarating White Knuckle ride from start to finish and I'm going to play it okay ♪

7:11attention re retention invention application one one one nation no no no trepidation you are the one for me cuz I am the one you are the one I I am the one for you and she is here it takes you.

8:11So we let this spe grow is free it me this Fe and she's here me let the speed gr ande dream inside though I can't hide lost my side around the outside tream out my te no one's left in you is me's better inside she's better cuz and she is here the spe and he like you are the am the one than you you are the you are the I am the ♪

9:54one okay great so as an Image Maker I've become I'm very sick of the whiteness of fashion and the thinness of fashion of the fashion image and working with a brand like selfridges has enabled me to explore a much wider spectrum of casting options diversity is incredibly important to me in with casting that is representations of the real which I personally find much more attractive and aesthetically pleasing than Thea the traditionally photoshopped fashion Body so I'm in a position now where I find some commissions really quite difficult unless they come from Progressive Brands and I just don't think it's good enough to ignore damaging representations of both women and men in the media in 2016 the fashion industry does need to take responsibility for the imagery it puts out there as do the advertising and mus music video world I personally love real people I love how they look I'm super interested in their stories and what they've got to say I also love Aesthetics and art directions so try to create beautiful spaces for them to appear in but really as themselves and that's really important to me as an image maker I feel a huge responsibility to be super conscious and considered with what I send out into the world and who it might affect and it feels really lazy not to be in this day and age so my latest film and the film I'm going to going to end with tonight is a short documentary called incredible machines that came out about a month ago and again for selfes I decided to make a film about women's relationship to their underwear as from talking about it with female friends and colleagues I quickly realized what a vastly complex and personal subject it is contemporary Notions of underwear have been largely formed by the male gaze a sexualized advertising often showing women in post orgasmic States looking beautiful and breathless and impossible designs this certainly isn't how I feel when I'm trying to wriggle into my own pants in the mornings so I decided to look at this in this film I wanted to go making a film that really challenged these perceptions of how we engage with underwear and also wanted to hear what a really diverse and interesting bunch of women had to say about it to reflect a good spectrum of women and their stories the casting again became very important the casts in this film were chosen for their mostly for their unique perspectives engaging characters and the willingness to appear strip back in their own underwear I chose a really diverse cast including Michelle Lamy who's a creative collaborator business partner and Muse of Rick Owens chadine Reed who's the founder of w Nails Naomi shamada who's a model and body activist Charlie Craigs who's a trans activist and founder of nails transphobia and one of my students one of my ex- students and Roxana beam who's a British Thai boxing champion and designer of sports hijabs for women I was also really lucky with this film to work with another fantastic choreographer this time it was way McGregor from the Royal Ballet he brought a real Cal and confidence to the cast on the day anyway I'm I'm going to play it.

12:59Now. That's it for me this evening I hope you enjoy it and thank you so here we go men dream of women men look at women women watch themselves being looked at women constantly meet glances reminding them of how they look or how they should look behind every glance is a judgment sometimes the glance they meet is their ♪

13:28own I feel powerful like a Ferrari fast furious and strong I think trans women's bodies are often so sexualized I don't dress to please other people. And I don't dress to please men I dress to please myself I come from a family of eight aunties you know I grew up with this very female strong environment which was all about looking and feeling good like no one was ever negative we should treat our bodies kindly they're actually incredible machines that do so many amazing things very well. And I think we take that for ♪

14:08granted there is not like the body and and the Soul it is one person it's something you owe to yourself and to the world to make it as mobile and what you think is your way of being beautiful thanks ABS eyes legs my mouth when I had the baby I was like this body's created life what have you done today for like two decades I spent my life wearing the wrong genders underwear and I was so uncomfortable I fought my battle and now. And I've won. And I'm I'm wearing my ♪

15:03glory I like to to wear underwear that could be out of wear at any time so what I wear the wear now I I take my t-shirt off.

15:14And I'm at the chin progress 100% tone why is everyone scared of being like a size 14 why is there still such like anxiety and shame attached to that my bum's always been quite flat for a black girl so then it's like oh for a black girl you haven't got a big bum and it's like ah you can't win there's so many different things you have to tick off all the time. And it's like actually exhausting so the only thing you can think is like okay what works for me I want the tokenism to be taken away there just needs to be more of everything.

16:08That's the only way to truly diversify and create a new aesthetic like why are we sticking to one aesthetic like I'm bored everybody's bored we've come a long way you know with Muslim women taking part in the Olympics the sports hijob being accepted in the Olympics I feel confident about what I wear when I'm performing and going out for fights I feel that I'm ready for action. And I'm ready for about it's a joy to have the body and shape I was not thinking I will feel 20 when I'm 70 but I do very