Saturday 6th November at the BFI Southbank

Back as a full group of five we headed to the BFI Southbank - perhaps our most prestigious venue on the tour. We had booked in at the BFI as early as May and we see it that our contact, David Somerset, and his teams' support from an early stage, helped us strengthen our original Deutsche Bank proposal to such a degree that we had the confidence to win the award.
So this was a special workshop for us and it wasn't to dissapoint. We were situated in the workspace - a hugely visible glass tank of a room just behind the bar and in view of the box office so we were able to collect many passers by throughout the day.


Our participants were noticeably studious - creating exceptionally detailed figurative and abstractly patterned animations with scratch techniques and permanent markers. Jo made a great hand-drawn sign that we were able to project onto whilst creating live loops - so entertaining our younger Unravel-ers whilst attracting people in. We loved the day and were especially thrilled to be linked with the Essential Experiments strand of the BFI's programme which was showcasing the work of one of our heroes and biggest influences - Len Lye.

Lye was a New Zealand born artist who pioneered some of the very first hand painted film techniques and was even employed by the G.P.O Film Unit of the Post Office during the 1930's and '40's under the tenure of John Grierson who also commisioned amazing short films like Harry Watt and Basil Wright's Night Mail and the hilarious The Fairy of the Phone by William Coldstream.
We regularly introduce people to Lye's work for the first time which is a great part of our touring process. If you have never seen his work check out his work here or on the side panel of reference films to the right of this text but really you should support the distribution of his work and buy the DVD or the BFI's excellent collection of films that Grierson commisioned at the GPO here, here and here!