Qui suis-je? Who am I? Who do I follow? is a continuation of the work I began in a three-and-a-half minute video titled Sic transit Gloria mundi. Qui suis-je? documents my process of finding information about my paternal grandmother, about whom I know almost nothing. This video traces the ways in which I have found my grandmother through my body; I first found out about my grandmother when I was doing a genetics project in high school. I was fifteen when I found out that she ever existed, and it wasn't until I was 25 that I learned her name. By combining original footage, found footage and photographs, I connect the very personal aspect of my work to the larger historical phenomenon of women being excluded from history. My video also raises questions about what it means as a woman to have possible female role models or figures of identification made inaccessible by the writing of history. At the same time as we must praise living women, we must excavate forgotten women from our past and ensure that their stories are told—not as a symbolic act of remembering, but because of what we can learn from them and because of the ways they can inspire, even if they are only a ghostly presence. biography, documentary, grandmother, family, secrets, forgotten, repressed, history, memory, found footage, women, woman, body, bodies, dress, style, slide projector, typewriter, fashion, writing, tattoo, becoming, remembering, memorial, uncovering, the past, clothing, record

• published: 20 Dec 2011
• views: 24