Michelle Williams Gamaker

Michelle Williams Gamaker is a moving image and performance artist. Her work explores the fiction-making machine of 20C British and Hollywood studio films. She was joint winner of the Jarman Award 2020.

Williams Gamaker’s key focus is the development of ‘fictional activism’: the restoration of marginalised brown characters as central figures, who return in her works as vocal protagonists challenging the fictional injustices to which they have been historically consigned. Scriptwriting, workshopping with actors, acquiring film paraphernalia and producing props for the intricate staging of her film sets are all vital elements in the re-enactment of the artificial landscapes that shaped Williams Gamaker’s love of cinema.

Her most recent film is The Bang Straws (2021), a re-working of the casting process of Sidney Franklin’s The Good Earth (1937), a film notorious for a white actor’s racist portrayal of a Chinese character.

She completed Dissolution, a trilogy of films comprising House of Women (2017),The Fruit is There to be Eaten (2018), and The Eternal Return (2019) in which characters from Powell and Pressburger’s 1947 Black Narcissus unravel as they become aware of their screen and staged realities.

Fictional activists are mutable subjects that can be played either by Williams Gamaker herself – such as her alter ego Violet Culbo – or by long-term collaborators who take on multiple personas including that of the Indian-born US film star Sabu – or characters such as Kanchi from Black Narcissus(1947), and O-Lan from The Good Earth (1937).

Collaboration is also a crucial element of Williams Gamaker’s work; since 2009 she has worked with American artist Julia Kouneski, revisiting the work of Brazilian artist Lygia Clark’s psychotherapeutic research as inspiration for interventions with the body, architecture and landscape.

Born in London, in 1979
Lives and works in London

Education
2006 – 12 PhD Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, University of London
2005 – 06  MA Visual Anthropology, Goldsmiths College, University of London
1998 – 01  BA Fine Art, Middlesex University

International Residencies
2003 – 05  de Ateliers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Solo Exhibitions
The Dissolution Trilogy, Mattflix, (2021)
The Silver Wave, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, (2020)
The End of the River, Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds, (2020)
Distant Relative, Tintype, London (2019)
Head On, Punt WG, Amsterdam (2013)

Group Exhibitions/Screenings

2023
A Screaming Comes Across The Sky, Pastor Projects, Los Angeles, US

2022
The Whitechapel Open 2022, Whitechapel Gallery, London
Exploratory Drawings, Maximillian William, London
Worked with Hospital Rooms, partnership with Hauser & Wirth, Springfield Hospital, London

2021
Multiply Each Day, Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
The Bang Straws, selected for the 2021 BFI London Film Festival, Experimenta Programme, and one of the ten films nominated for the BFI Short Film Competition
The Bang Straws selected for the Aesthetica Short Film Festival in York
The Bang Straws screened at the 25th Internationale Kurtagefilmtage, Winterthur, The Short Film Festival, Switzerland and nominated for the International Competition
The Bang Straws, a one-off screening at FACT, Liverpool and an in-conversation with Michelle Williams Gamaker and Annie Jael-Kwan 

2020
November 2020: a weekend of screenings,discussions and performances from the six shortlisted artists for the Jarman Award, at the Whitechapel Gallery, London
Go On Being So, Newlyn Art Gallery and the Exchange, Penzance
3 screenings as part of Shadow Catchers: Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Michelle Williams Gamaker, Domain Theatre, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Feb Go On Being So, Newlyn Art Gallery and the Exchange, Penzance
Feb 3 screenings as part of Shadow Catchers: Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Michelle Williams Gamaker, Domain Theatre, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

2019
More Gravy! Tintype Gallery, London
As Seen on Screen, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Mascara Film Club 05: Bo Choy, Michelle Williams Gamaker, Jennifer Martin, Rhea Storr
Monitor 13: Dance on my head and scratch my heart, Savac, Toronto
All About You The Koppel Project, HIVE, curated by Alex White
Madame B Explorations in Emotional Capitalism (with Mieke Bal) Lethaby Gallery, London

2018
Women, Power, Protest, Arts Council Collection at Birmingham Museum and Art
Gallery, (10 Nov 2018 – 31 March 2019)
Essex Road 5 Tintype, London, commissioned to make Encore (Resurrection Manifestations), short film for Tintype’s annual moving image programme
Screening of House of Women in the 62nd BFI London Film Festival, Experimenta – Performing Invisibility
section, programmed by Qila Gil
Screening of House of Women in the 22nd Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Switzerland: The Female Gaze
Screening of Brown Queers at MIX Copenhagen LGBTQ Film Festival
Screening of Brown Queers at Pink Screens Film Festival, Cine Nova, Brussels
Queering the Collection at MIMA, Middlesbrough, curated by Claire Mead and Helen Welford
Curious Arts Festival, Baltic, Newcastle
The Palace International Film Festival 2018
Library Interventions: Moving Knowledge, Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds Art University (co curated by Michelle Williams Gamaker and Nick Norton)
Freud Museum, Solitary Pleasures, Freud Museum, London (curated by Marquard Smith)
Panorama, Dortmund/Cologne International Women’s Film Festival
Transmediale Festival: Face Value – White Balance and On Resentment
History Repeats Itself Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA)

2017
34th Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur (Switzerland)
Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival
l’Alternativa 2017 – 24th Barcelona Independent Film Festival
Work Work, Tintype, London
Brown Queers at Scottish Queer Film Festival (SQIFF)
The World Made New at Pi Projects, London
Brown Queers at Leeds Queer Film Festival
Madame B Explorations in Emotional Capitalism, Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova, Turku, Finland
Video Vortex VI (curated by Rashmi Sawhney) Kochi-Muziris Biennial, India
Concrete Jungle, Annka Kultys Gallery, London (curated by Alexandra White)
Emma and Edvard, Love in the Time of Loneliness, Munch Museet, Norway

2016
Video Screening, Artist’s Films at The Swiss Church London
Trailing Off, ICA, London
Wayfaring, &Model Leeds (curated by Laura White)
Precarity (with Mieke Bal) Arts and Technology Research Lab, Dublin, Ireland

2015
The Making, The Agency, London
the future of architecture and urbanism Jai + Jai Gallery, Los Angeles
Precarity (with Mieke Bal) in The Importance of Being a (Moving) Image, The National Gallery, Prague (curated by Adam Budak)

2014
Cause & Effect (with Mieke Bal) VIVA festival, Valletta, Malta
Madame B Explorations in Emotional Capitalism (with Mieke Bal)
World Premiere Madame B (with Mieke Bal) Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Gallery of Sydney, College of the Arts, Australia
Sala de Arte, EAFIT Universidad, and Sala U Universidad Nacional, Medellín, Colombia, The Post House, Eckerro, Åland, Finland
Emotions and Capitalism Vaal Gallery, Tallinn, Estonia
Madame B: When Love Fails Us Museum Bärengasse, Zürich, Switzerland
Madame B. Explorations in Emotional Capitalism Museum Sztuki, Łódź, Poland

2013
2013 Head-On Punt WG, Amsterdam

2012
Saying It Freud Museum, London (Arts Council of England)
Cosas imposibles Nave Generadores, Monterrey, Mexico
Past Landscape: Among Old Masters Göttingen, Kunstsammlung der Georg- Universität Göttingen,
Eine zweite chance (A Second Chance), vbkö, Vienna
Islands of Madness Galleri Kakelhallen, Mariehamn, Åland, Finland

2011
What Culture Silences Festival on Wheels, Goethe Institute, Ankara, Turkey
Landscapes of Madness curated by Mia Hannula, Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova, Turku
Facing It: Imaging Madness Broadcast Gallery, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland
La última frontera / The Last Frontier Fundación José García Jiménez, Murcia
Tony Zielgler: The Alienation of Objects Zabludowicz Collection, London
Body/Space Mechanics De Hallen, Haarlem, Netherlands
Adaptation: Between Species The Power Plant Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada
Anachronisms (with Mieke Bal) Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain

2009
Miss B’s Salon Wartesaal, Perla Moda, Zurich, Switzerland
Mostly it Happens at Night curated by Maaike Gouwenberg, Amsterdam, Netherlands,

2007
2MOVE: Migratory Aesthetics curated by Mieke Bal and Miguel Angel
Hernández Sala Verónicas and Centro Párraga, Murcia, Spain,
Dis-Economy of Life – On Migratory Aesthetics, Travelling Concepts & Organization of Economic Life screenings Cinema Suitcase projects, curated by Marko Stamenkovic, Klub Kulture; MMC Palach, Rijeka, Croatia; Monte Paradizo Hacklab Pula, Croatia; Sofia, Bulgaria; Artpool Art Research Center, Budapest, Hungary; Bucharest Biennial, Romania; TV Buna Dimineata, Romania; O3ONE, Belgrade, Serbia.
The Switch Live Art Performance: Dreaming Confusion Camden Arts Centre

2005
Masculinities curated by Kathrin Becker, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany,
screening “All About Évike”, Rialto Cinema, Amsterdam,Netherlands,
Cinema Suitcase Unpacked Staten Island, NYC, USA

2004
Elizabitch Filmmuseum, Rialto Cinema, Kamer 301, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Your Heart Is No Match for My Love curated by Bree Edwards, Soap Factory,
Minneapolis, USA
Lady into Fox de ateliers, Amsterdam

2003
Reality Check British Council/Photographers Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia
Intravention W139/Museum Amstelkring, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Les Rencontres Internationale Paris, France, and Berlin, Germany
Reality Check Gallery Rudolfinum, Prague, Czech Republic; The Arsenals,
Riga, Latvia; Bunkier Gallery, Kracow, Poland,

2002
Reality Check British Council/Photographers Gallery, Moderna Galerija,
Lubliana, Slovenia and 14 Wharf Road, London
Transport Export House, London
Heimlich – Unheimlich curated by Juliana Engberg, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne,
Australia
Heavy Petting De Ooievaar, Den Haag, Netherlands
National Review of Live Art The Arches, Glasgow, Scotland
Light Structures curated by Dryden Goodwin, Tate Britain, London, and Arnolfini, Bristol

2001
Tranz>Tech curated by Dryden Goodwin, New Media Biennial, Toronto, Canada
Youthquake II curated by Jean Bernard Koemann, Gallery W139, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Bloomberg New Contemporaries curated by Chris Ofil, Mike Nelson, and Jennifer Higgie, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Arts, Sunderland, and Camden Arts Centre, London