Animex Exhibition

An exhibition featuring the latest film by Katherine O’Connor, Potter's Mirror.

11-15 November, Middlesbrough Town Hall Prison Cells

This exhibition features the latest film by Katherine O’Connor called Potter’s Mirror, through a reimagining of the film within the exhibition space, alongside a rolling screening of this award-winning film.

Katherine O’Connor is a director, writer and artist working across animation and installation. Based in North-East England, Katherine has written and directed short form animated films that have been screened internationally, notably Stuttgart Trickfilm International Animated Film Festival, Hiroshima International festival, BBC Three, Yorkshire Television and Channel 4 Rolling Stock Festival. Katherine’s taxidermy installation works have been commissioned by galleries and museums within the Tees Valley area whilst her writings have been published as part of edited collections most recently, The Uncanny and the Afterlife of the Gothic, edited by Manuela D’Amore.

Based on the themes of loss and grief through dementia, Potter's Mirror represents the internal structures of the mind. We follow the daily activities of the Watchman as he tends to his memories and nurtures new emerging ideas. All is well until a deterioration of the environment forces him to escape through the window.

The film design is based on the Freudian analogy of the mind regarding the Watchman. The Watchman is charged with the filtering of thoughts and ideas that emerge from the unconscious. He examines them and decides whether they will be brought forward into the conscious.