Dr Esther Johnson’s ‘Chalk Trace’ to be shown at Stroud Arts Festival

Still from 'Chalk Trace' b y Esther Johnson, courtesy of Esther Johnson, of a school desk and a photograph of windows of a building near to a chalk line

Dr Esther Johnson‘s Chalk Trace, which was made in 2013 for Channel 4’s Random Acts, is being shown between 06 September and 05 October as part of the Stroud Arts Festival. The centenary of Stroud’s most celebrated writer Laurie Lee (1914 -1997) is being marked with a host of events throughout the year in Stroud and the surrounding valleys.

Chalk Trace
Stroud Arts Festival
06 September 2014 – 05 October 2014

As a child in the 1950s, Ron Cockroft drew a chalk line from his school in Oldham to his home in Chadderton. Chalk Trace commemorates and reanimates his graffiti journey through a now much-changed network of streets. The film was photographed in the original streets of Oldham as they stand today – over 60 years after Ron’s original graffiti. The street images are individual photographs that were then re-photographed and animated on a 1950s school desk, via a mix of HD video and 16mm film. The soundtrack recounts the street names that Ron journey’s through.

Esther Johnson works at the intersection of artist moving image and documentary. Her poetic portraits focus on marginal worlds, revealing resonant stories that may otherwise remain hidden or ignored. Work has been exhibited internationally in 40 countries, and has also featured on television and radio. In 2012 Johnson won the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Performing and Visual Arts for young scholars. She is a Reader in Media Arts at Sheffield Hallam University. Find out more about Esther’s work here.

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