Public Figure

‘Do I dance how you expect?’ The body of a poet is tracked in four connected domestic locations, corresponding to four poems: ‘Song of Jack’, ‘The Making of Him’, ‘My Orange Dance’ and ‘Opinion.’ This film is the result of a collaboration between two friends, poet-performer Ryan Ormonde and artist-filmmaker Madalina Zaharia, based on Madalina's observations of Ryan's poetic process.

Through this exchange, the poet and the onlooker are collectively staging a particular sense of
‘publicness’, a certain type of relationship that relies heavily on the tension between the body and the voice, and has its source in practices of embodied poetry and writing. What is it to present yourself in a poem as well as on screen? The filmed body is captured at odds with the disembodied voice in voice-over. Moments of lip-synch simultaneously bridge and expose the schism. Queerness is delineated through its oppositions. Oranges will fall.

  • Madalina Zaharia
    Director
    The Six basic Rules of UnTidying (2020), The Mess Can’t Clean the Hand (2020), When I Occupy the Present (2019)
  • Ryan Ormonde
    Writer
  • Madalina Zaharia
    Producer
  • Ryan Ormonde
    Key Cast
  • Emma Dalesman
    Director of Photography
  • Joshua Fay
    Music & Sound Design
  • Ryan Ormonde
    Voice
  • Daniel Hay-Gordon
    Choreography
  • Thom Shaw
    Costumes & Set Design
  • Christopher J Orr
    Focus Puller
  • Sabrina Corda
    Gaffer
  • Ross Taylor
    Production Assistant
  • Madalina Zaharia
    Editing and Graphics
  • Jason R Moffat
    Colourist
  • Chris Smith (Kluster Sounds)
    Voiceover Recording
  • SHIFT4 (London)
    Camera And Lighting Equipment
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short
  • Genres:
    LGBTQ+, Dance, Poetry
  • Runtime:
    9 minutes 43 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    February 10, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    6,000 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    17:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Madalina Zaharia

Madalina Zaharia (b.1985, Sighetu Marmatiei, Romania) is a Romanian artist who lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include: So Far So Good, Budapest Gallery, Budapest; Viral self-portraits, Moderna galerija (MG+MSUM), Ljubljana; Art Encounters Biennial 2019 (curated by Maria Lind and Anca Rujoiu), Timisoara; Reading as Rhythm: A Sonic Exploration of the Visual Vocabulary of Control Magazine, Tate Exchange Liverpool (2018); DEBT., Tintype Gallery (solo), London (2017); Identify Your Limitations, Acknowledge The Periphery, Vitrine Gallery, London (2016); The Staging of an Exhibition, Ivan Gallery (solo), Bucharest (2016); London Open 2015, Whitechapel Gallery, London.

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Director Statement

Madalina Zaharia’s work focuses on the provocative relationship between design and fiction and explores the unavoidable inadequacy that arises when imagining and representation collide. Her practice reflects and contemplates a certain absurdity and visual incongruity by intentionally flattening a myriad of symbols and cultural references into one, locking them all together inside the smooth and carefully composed decorum of the artwork. The very fine line between art, design and storytelling is constantly challenged and confronted by the language and visual vocabulary employed within her creative actions, transforming the studio and the gallery into spaces for discourse and abstract entertainment, arenas animated by gestures, objects and meaningful shapes. She is particularly interested in the way in which personal experience and fiction could influence and instruct our relationship with reality, exploring the very way in which we use self-analysis and reflection in order to construct and produce meaning.