The Last Person
1998, B+W Silent, 10mins 30secs.
‘The Last Person’ was short listed for the 1999 ‘Glen Dimplex Arts Awards’ (Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin).
A strange substance (‘ectoplasm’) emerges from the medium’s mouth; hands appear and spirits are conjured up. The piece is based on the trial of Helen Duncan (1898-1956). Duncan, a medium from Portsmouth was the last person to be tried under the British Witchcraft Act of 1735. The piece uses images of the artist posing as a medium and follows some of the events described in the court reports (‘The Times’ 1944) that followed the trial. The séance room phenomena are recreated and an image of both the seductive and the macabre is presented.
The Last Person
Exhibitions and Screenings
2007 'Seeing is Believing', Photographers' Gallery, London.
2001 ‘Susan MacWilliam -Solo Show - Gallery 1, Cornerhouse, Manchester.
1999 ‘Glen Dimplex Artists Awards’, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland.
1999 ‘Daughters of The Middle Border’, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA.
1999 ‘The Grotesqueness of Desire’, insideART, Chicago, USA.
1999 ‘Haunted’, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, England.
1999 ‘Zone Multimedia Festival’, Maidstone, Kent, England.
1998 ‘First Cut’, Irish Film Centre, Dublin, Ireland.
1998 ‘Exhibition of Visual Art/EV+A ‘98’, Limerick; Ireland.
1998 The Loft Gallery, Kingston, New York, USA.
1998 ‘Video Soup’, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland.
1998 ‘Fix ‘98’, Catalyst Arts, Belfast, N.Ireland.
Awards
1999 Shortlisted for the ‘Glen Dimplex/Irish Museum of Modern Art Artists Awards’, Ireland.
