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W5161
24.09.2012
BIO for Viscera Film Festival - Jasmine Hirst
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  • Jasmine Hirst: BIO for Viscera Film Festival New York underground artist Jasmine Hirst's ten-year correspondence with serial killer Aileen Wuornos leads to an intimate and mesmerizing interview on Florida's death row. In 1993 I saw Aileen’s photogr ...

    Jasmine Hirst: BIO for Viscera Film Festival New York underground artist Jasmine Hirst's ten-year correspondence with serial killer Aileen Wuornos leads to an intimate and mesmerizing interview on Florida's death row.

    In 1993 I saw Aileen’s photograph in the newspaper. I wrote to her and we continued this correspondence for ten years, until her execution. All too often I had witnessed the trajectory of the sexually abused child to a life of self-abuse and destruction. Women usually self-destruct. Aileen hit outwards.

    In 1997‚ Aileen asked me to come and film her on death row as she knew I was an artist and not a journalist and was tired of the media's mistreatment of her. She wanted to talk about the truth of her life and crimes‚ as part of her preparation for her impending death. I spent two hours with her. She talked about her childhood‚ her lovers‚ her experience on the road as a prostitute and the murders.

    This film also includes interviews with artists‚ Penny Arcade‚ Nan Goldin and Lydia Lunch and others, who discuss the transforming power of finding a creative voice. “I had a similar life experience to Aileen‚ but I ended up on the stages of the world rather than on death row.” Penny Arcade.

    This is a powerful film about the destruction borne of a life of sexual abuse and abandonment‚ and the possibility of transforming this wound through the power of creativity.

    But I can't complete this film for some reason. Aileen was executed in 2002 and still I sit with this transfixing footage, unable to bring it to the light of day.

    Instead I make two-minute trailers of all the films I will never complete. They have become an unconscious journey into the shadowlands of my psyche, as I try to discover the reason for my procrastination. Will I die before I finish this film?

    Jasmine Hirst: BIO for Viscera Film Festival New York underground artist Jasmine Hirst's ten-year correspondence with serial killer Aileen Wuornos leads to an intimate and mesmerizing interview on Florida's death row. In 1993 I saw Aileen’s photogr ...

    Jasmine Hirst: BIO for Viscera Film Festival New York underground artist Jasmine Hirst's ten-year correspondence with serial killer Aileen Wuornos leads to an intimate and mesmerizing interview on Florida's death row.

    In 1993 I saw Aileen’s photograph in the newspaper. I wrote to her and we continued this correspondence for ten years, until her execution. All too often I had witnessed the trajectory of the sexually abused child to a life of self-abuse and destruction. Women usually self-destruct. Aileen hit outwards.

    In 1997‚ Aileen asked me to come and film her on death row as she knew I was an artist and not a journalist and was tired of the media's mistreatment of her. She wanted to talk about the truth of her life and crimes‚ as part of her preparation for her impending death. I spent two hours with her. She talked about her childhood‚ her lovers‚ her experience on the road as a prostitute and the murders.

    This film also includes interviews with artists‚ Penny Arcade‚ Nan Goldin and Lydia Lunch and others, who discuss the transforming power of finding a creative voice. “I had a similar life experience to Aileen‚ but I ended up on the stages of the world rather than on death row.” Penny Arcade.

    This is a powerful film about the destruction borne of a life of sexual abuse and abandonment‚ and the possibility of transforming this wound through the power of creativity.

    But I can't complete this film for some reason. Aileen was executed in 2002 and still I sit with this transfixing footage, unable to bring it to the light of day.

    Instead I make two-minute trailers of all the films I will never complete. They have become an unconscious journey into the shadowlands of my psyche, as I try to discover the reason for my procrastination. Will I die before I finish this film?