Anna Ginsburg’ talk was probably my favourite of all the artist talks I’ve been to in the Sallis Benney Theatre. She was so engaging and her projects were very interesting, bold and beautifully animated. Anna is a filmmaker with a diverse range of talents; she specialises in combining different techniques and approaches, working across traditional hand-drawn 2D, stop-motion, digital imagery and live-action.
She has done a lot of different projects for different brands and collaborations, but it all started with Anna’s first music video for Bombay Bicycle Club’s ‘How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep?’ which won a Bafta at the New Talent Awards. She was lucky enough to know the band personally and started this work while at university.
I particularly loved her animation ‘What is Beauty?’ which showed the way the ideal female body has changed over time yet all the different shapes are beautiful through shapes which are constantly shrinking and stretching. She created it for International Women’s Day 2018. I found this piece so inspiring, especially because I am looking to explore the human form and seeing the way ideals have changed over time in one animation is so powerful. It also has such an important message because so many worry about not having the body type that is deemed fashionable and beautiful, yet what’s in fashion changes so much it is impossible to keep up with.
The flowing animation begins in 28,000 BC, morphing between sculptures of Fertility Goddesses through ancient Egyptian views of perception and then through the ages; The Bronze Age, Ancient Greek, the Renaissance and beyond. As the modern era is reached, the female body is seen through technology, becoming painfully and dangerously distorted. The film ends with a message to reject the unattainable, often impossible and dangerous ideals imposed on women.
Anna also did an animation called ‘Private Parts’ which tackles the stigma around sex and genitalia in a fun and lighthearted way. She collaborated with other animators on this project which makes the characters more individual but it still works well collectively. I love her bravery to tackle important issues in bold and outspoken animations.
“As a montage of intimate self-expression, it made sense for this multitude of real voices to be visualised by a range of my favourite animators and designers,” Anna explains. “The diversity of styles emphasise the wide range of people and attitudes being expressed.”
Collaboration is so important and opens up many new opportunities. Anna’s most recent work ‘Ugly’ came from sending a message to the painter Melissa Kitty Jarram on Instagram because she wanted to try and animate one of her paintings so badly. It was originally just a personal project, but after initial success, a longer animation was created and Anna was able to convince Warsan Shire to let her animate her words. ‘Ugly’ was released for World Refugee Day 2019. An animated narration of the poem by Warsan Shire with voiceover from the poet. Each shot started with a beautiful original painting by Melissa, which Anna then painstakingly recreated digitally, each frame taking up to an hour, to create a stunning, flowing animation that looks like no other.
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