Emily Wardill’s Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck - a Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network and Picture This co-production produced as part of the Bristol Mean Time residency , with support from The Elephant Trust out of the George Melhuish Bequest – will be on show at Picture This’ space for contemporary artists’ film and video in Bristol from 31 October until 1 December.

Emily Wardill’s latest film takes audiences into dark allegorical scenes depicting religious iconography, outmoded superstition and slapstick comedy.

Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck employs imagery from British ecclesiastic stained glass to create a visually and conceptually rich, dense and multi-layered film. The work references Pier Paolo Pasolini’s controversial 1963 short film La Ricotta, (for which he was imprisoned for blasphemy on the basis of ‘enacting’ a religious scene as a comedy sketch). The scenes that unfold invoke both a sense of unease and amusement operating in a space between faith and flippancy.

The bold colours and dramatic compositions of stained glass are echoed within the film’s scenes. Characters inhabit a world of allegory and slapstick within a constructed set that lies somewhere between medieval imagery, cubist and fauvist painting and a stoned teenager’s bedroom. A soundtrack of 12th Century choral music juxtaposed with dance hall beats, spoken dialogue and voice-overs becomes an additional discordant layer.

In this world characters turn from stained glass to humans to paper and back again, they speak theatrically – slowly, stilted and with precision. This careful dialogue is punctuated by contemporary references jarring in the same way that the black lead punctuates and separates the figures within ecclesiastical glass.

The film’s use of many different and often contradictory references, its clash of opulence and low-fi and the use of unexpected, humorous dialogue all catch audiences off guard.

A specially commissioned essay by Ian White, independent curator and writer and Adjunct Film Curator for Whitechapel Gallery, London accompanies the exhibition.

Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck is also being screened at The Times BFI 51st London Film Festival as part of The Anagogic Chamber on Sunday 28 October.

For further information on the exhibition visit the Picture This website.