Inside the Cauldron: Film Screening
When:
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Venue:
Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square
This event is a screening of ‘Inside the Cauldron’, a short film co-created by Sophie Mei Birkin and India Ayles, and produced by Robyn Jakeman at the Derek Jarman Lab (Birkbeck). The event will begin with a talk on Leonora Carrington by Professor Marina Warner, who provides the voiceover for the film. The film screening will be followed by a Q&A with the production team.
Film Description: A recently discovered ecological essay by the pioneering Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington has resurfaced in a world grappling with the environmental collapse she feared. In response to her urgent message, a group of emerging artists from the UK and Mexico created 'Inside the Cauldron', an experimental film that brings her vision to life.
Produced by the Derek Jarman Lab and filmed inside Carrington’s previously unseen home and studio in Mexico City, 'Inside the Cauldron' offers a rare glimpse into her world—one that celebrates hybridity and dissolves the boundaries between human and animal.
About the filmmakers
Co-director – India Ayles is a costume and jewellery designer whose work has been exhibited at the V&A, Sadlers Wells, and the Southbank Centre. She is currently studying at the British Academy of Jewellery.
Co-director – Sophie Mei Birkin is a multimedia artist. She has recently exhibited work at The Split Gallery, Barbican Cinema, Southbank Centre, and Saatchi Gallery. Sophie Mei is an Associate Lecturer in Fine Art at University of the Arts London. www.sophiemei.art
Producer – Robyn Jakeman is a producer at the Derek Jarman Lab and an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. She has written a monograph on Italian Futurism and English modernism (Bloomsbury; forthcoming) and co-edited, with Professor Laurel Brake, a scholarly edition of Walter Pater’s studies and reviews (Oxford University Press; forthcoming). She is currently co-editing a volume on Wyndham Lewis and the arts (Edinburgh University Press).
The Derek Jarman Lab is a place to think with film. Part of Birkbeck, University of London, it is run by academics who use filmmaking as a tool for exploring and communicating research. Its first feature film, The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger, premiered at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival and is distributed by Curzon Artificial Eye. A second feature film, The Hexagonal Hive and a Mouse in a Maze (directed by Bartek Dziadosz and Tilda Swinton), premiered at Sheffield DocFest in 2024.
Contact name:
Sue Wiseman
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India Ayles
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Co-director – India Ayles is a costume and jewellery designer whose work has been exhibited at the V&A, Sadlers Wells, and the Southbank Centre. She is currently studying at the British Academy of Jewellery.
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Robyn Jakeman
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Producer – Robyn Jakeman is a producer at the Derek Jarman Lab and an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. She has written a monograph on Italian Futurism and English modernism (Bloomsbury; forthcoming) and co-edited, with Professor Laurel Brake, a scholarly edition of Walter Pater’s studies and reviews (Oxford University Press; forthcoming). She is currently co-editing a volume on Wyndham Lewis and the arts (Edinburgh University Press).
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Sphie Mel
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Co-director – Sophie Mei Birkin is a multimedia artist. She has recently exhibited work at The Split Gallery, Barbican Cinema, Southbank Centre, and Saatchi Gallery. Sophie Mei is an Associate Lecturer in Fine Art at University of the Arts London.Sophie Mel Art