We two girls together singing
This is a response to Paul Klee's painting 'A Young Lady's Adventure' – or more accurately, a reflection of my response to the painting. One the same day as I saw the Paul Klee exhibition, I also saw, in another exhibition, a painting by David Hockney called 'We two boys together clinging', the title being a line from a poem by Walt Whitman. So there was a whirlpool of influences driving poem I made. But the poem's main engine was my imagining of what a young lady's adventure might be like, drawing on my own experience of being released into the wild of a big city in my early twenties – looking back on moments of pure, explosive discovery and fleeting yet infinite newness from a great distance.
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Janet LeesDirector
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Janet LeesWriter
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Project Type:Experimental, Other
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Runtime:2 hours 2 minutes 38 seconds
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Completion Date:May 19, 2022
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Country of Origin:United Kingdom
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Language:English
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
Janet Lees is a lens-based artist and poet. Her films have been selected for many festivals and screenings, including the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, the Aesthetica Art Prize, and the International Vidoepoetry Festival. She has won first prize in the Ó Bhéal Poetry-Film competition, and been placed and shortlisted in many other awards. Her art photography has been exhibited around the world and her poetry widely published in journals and anthologies.
I use the camera as a storytelling machine as much as a documenting device. In a world of throwaway videos, images and words, experimental and poetic film is a vital means of creative expression.