How does your garden grow?

Last night was the opening night of Bildwechsel's touring Garden programme, which featured the world premiere of my film, In Bloom. I had a little nostalgia walk as I headed over to Four Corners for the screening, noting which shopfronts had appeared since my last visit a few years before. At least the chippy is still in business.

On arriving at the venue to hand over my freshly burned copy of the film, I spotted a familiar face, that of Bildwechsel head Chris Regn, whom I'd met in Berlin in 2009. Since all my correspondence had been with Kate Henderson of Bildwechsel Glasgow, I hadn't realised that the various outposts were linking up for the programme, a pleasant surprise, and later I got reacquainted with Eva Kiezmann of Bildwechsel Berlin.

My film was on first, so I had none of the anticipatory nerves of last week. Instead I was the mystery starter for the wide-ranging programme, which featured entries from Canada and Germany, as well as the UK, in response to the call for submissions. I took no notes (for once!), but I particularly liked Gillian Steel's animation, as well as Lamathilde's multi-part piece. It was also bittersweet to see a film on the late, lamented Rosa Rose garden (now replanted elsewhere) bringing a little piece of grassroots Friedrichshain to East London.

What was also exciting for me was to chat to Super 8 experimentalist Bev Zalcock, the other attending filmmaker. I have only done one Super 8 film, and so it was great to chat to her about her practice making these films the hand-crafted way, adding dyes and so forth. Plus, she said she liked my film, and so I was chuffed.

Bildwechsel Garden Programme

Thursday sees the premiere of the Bildwechsel Garden Programme at East London's Four Corners.

I don't know the rest of the bill but I can say that my strange floral noir In Bloom will be having its world premiere on the day. Very exciting! I seem to be reliving my life this week, as I used to take film courses at Four Corners some years back, and lived around the corner.

Space is limited, so please email Bildwechsel if you would like to attend. bwglasgow@gmail.com

re.act: it's a wrap

So, all done then. The final speakers discussed the importance of archiving and different underlying philosophies. Chris Regn spoke about Hamburg's Bildwechsel, running for 30 years now and documenting work by women + (this includes queer work). She also conducts interviews for the Performance Saga series of DVDs on women performance artists. I missed speaking to them, through an odd series of crossed wires, but they are presenting live events in Switzerland in February.

Martha Wilson, featured in the exhibit and archive, spoke about the strange journey of her New York performance art archive Franklin Furnace, starting as a space for live art in 1976, pilloried by the culture wars of the 1980s and now in its online incarnation, digitising work produced at the venue. She commented acidly that it's easier to get grants to preserve work by Karen Finley than to present work by said artist, such is the shifting political climate.

I had an interesting chat with Wilson, curious about a comment she made in one of her pieces on show. In the early '70s she had explored various identities, including male and female archetypes, which she photographed and then wrote comments on the frames. Trying on Lesbian for size, she wrote: "her sexuality is so misplaced that the rest of society ignores her". To which my response was: Eh? Not very sisterly, Martha.

So, I asked her about it, and, blushing, she acknowledged that it was a negative comment and then explained that it was her view in 1974, that the photos hadn't been shown in 30 years and she knew she would take some flak for it. But, she is obviously made of stern stuff since she left it intact, despite identifying as a part-time lesbian. (Were the full-time vacancies not available? Damn this recession!)

Anyway, conference goers seemed buoyed by the proceedings and by the resurgence of interest in feminism and feminist art.