Output details

Surrender: The London Street Exhibition

This is a video installation for the 'London St Exhibition' held in the Context Gallery, Derry in 2008, where it was projected onto one full wall of the gallery. London Street is an old street in the historic centre of the city which, in its very name, symbolises the divided history of Derry-Londonderry. ‘SURRENDER’ is a collaborative process between Anne Crilly and Vincent O’Callaghan which explores visually the gaps and historical omissions in the received history. Crilly researched the history of London Street through testimonies of past and present dwellers, newspaper archives, and research interviews with local historians. The research question was how to find a way of telling a hidden history of a contested geographic space that would open up new insights and challenge old prejudices.

The video attempts to construct a feminist historical documentary with a less conventional narrative structure adopting a more experimental and fluid visual style. The film hints at fragments of history and of lost whispers and this suggested an impressionistic style of filming and editing. In particular, the video uses extreme close-ups that attempt to challenge the viewer to make sense of the context - to reconstruct the history as they construct the narrative.

There are shots looking in and also out of windows and doors; looking up to the Cathedral and down to the cellar; through cracks in walls and onto convent stained glass and holy statues. The film explores an 'impressionistic montage': a resident washes her steps – washing away history, memories - or perhaps the night before;

car lights, footsteps, a shocking red umbrella all jar as the present cityscape interjects into the narrative; a close-up landscape of crumpled bed sheets suggests desire, power, patriarchy. The final image is of a young woman - confident, poised, surrendering to her own pleasure, perhaps re-writing the narrative of the space, perhaps no longer hidden from history.