about
Eelyn Lee is an award-winning artist and filmmaker who has exhibited across UK including Barbican, Tate Modern, National Portrait Gallery and Whitechapel Gallery as well as internationally in Paris, Berlin, Bogotá and Toronto.
Her art practice combines collective research, devised theatre, screen writing and filmmaking to create frameworks for collaboration. In 2015, Eelyn's award-winning short film Life and Deaf screened at the Berlinale and in 2017 Creature of the Estuary was selected for the International Fiction Programme at the Bogota Short Film Festival. Monster [2015] and Creature of the Estuary [2016] feature BAFTA / Palme d’Or winner, Anamaria Marinca and were selected for the BAFTA qualifying Aesthetica film festival.
Eelyn's Hong Kong/English heritage motivates her interest in race, identity and ’othering’. In 2021 she completed Casting Fu Manchu, a ‘lockdown’ film that sees eleven actors of East and Southeast Asian heritage subvert the racist character of Dr Fu Manchu. She has recently completed Born on Sunday Silent, a short film funded by BFI Network and is currently developing her debut narrative feature film. Both films explore hidden stories from Britain's colonial past through genre based story-telling.
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Biography
With a Degree and Post-Graduate in Fine Art, Eelyn’s practice has a focus on performance, installation and the moving image. In the nineties she co-founded the performance group Sacred Cow, making devised visual theatre in post-industrial spaces in the North of England.
In 2000 Eelyn began applying devising techniques to the process of filmmaking. During an 1-year residency in a pupil referral unit in Hackney, East London she made Beneath the Hood [2004/52mins], a film portrait of young people excluded from school, which was broadcast in UK and distributed worldwide.
In 2004 she formed the production company Eelyn Lee Productions Ltd through which she pioneered collaborative working with young people over a ten year period. Work included the award-winning film Life and Deaf [2012/8mins] and Truce Triptych [2012/3mins] which was selected for Les Rencontres Internationales and screened at Palais de Tokyo, Paris before screenings at Whitechapel, Imperial War Museum and Tate Modern.
In 2014 Eelyn exhibited An Ealing Trilogy, an historic new moving image commission from the National Portrait Gallery, London, marking the first ever projected film installation to be displayed at the gallery. This piece was also selected for Les Rencontres Internationales in Paris and Berlin.
In 2014 Eelyn was supported by Barbican and Arts Council England to embark on an investigation in to improvised filmmaking. The first iteration, Monster [2015/16mins] premiered at the BAFTA Qualifying Aesthetica Short Film Festival and has screened at Barbican, Close-Up Film Centre and Focal Point Gallery. With further funding from Arts Council England, Eelyn developed the second iteration, Creature of the Estuary through a series of residencies at Metal, an artistic lab on the Thames Estuary. The film premiered at Estuary 2016 before it's London premiere at Whitechapel Gallery in February 2017. Eelyn is currently developing the third iteration, a feature length film for theatrical release.
In 2016 Eelyn co-founded Social Art Network, who in 2018, convened the inaugural Social Art Summit - an artist-led review of socially engaged arts practice in the UK and beyond.
In 2018 Site Gallery commissioned Eelyn's River Project and the Barbican commisisoned Futurist Women, a short film made in collaboration with 13-year old girls and a group of women who have experienced domestic violence. Futurist Women has screened at festivals in London, Sheffield, York and Berlin, and as part of 16 Days 16 Films.
In 2019 Eelyn completed Britishness, a creative documentary exploring race, identity and belonging. In 2020, she made Casting Fu Manchu as a response to the COVID related racism towards East and Southeast Asian people [commissioned by Kakilang and screened at Estuary 2021].
In 2021 Eelyn began Performing Identities, an expansive project exploring what it means to be East and Southeast Asian in the UK today. The first cycle, Saam Sing 三星 was commissioend by Chisenhale Dance for Encounter Bow, 2021. Work in progress from the second cycle, Hong Kong Future Diaspora 香港離散之後 was exhibited at Bloc Projects [21 Oct - 19 Nov 2022] and culminated in Four Quadrants of the Sky 四大神獸, an immersive video installation exhibited at Bloc Projects [15th Sept - 14th Oct 2023].
She is currently developing her first narrative feature film and has recently completed Born on Sunday Silent, a short film funded by BFI Network. Both films explore hidden stories from Britain's colonial past through genre based story-telling.
Throughout her career Eelyn has developed a strong reputation as a workshop leader and facilitator and has designed and led numerous cross-art community projects for Barbican, English National Opera, University of the Arts London, Hackney Empire and a range of schools and colleges.
Artist's Statement
I am interested in groups of people, both in the making of the work and as a subject. By applying improvisation techniques usually associated with devised theatre, I like to work with an ensemble of collaborators to create content for live perfomance and moving images. This process can mean re-imagining people, place and stories to create a new mythology.
Ultimately, I am seeking to find new ways of constructing narrative within an emotional landscape, one that links places with people, story and memory, simultaneously capturing past, present and future, myth and reality.
