Elevation
2009 // 10′ // HD // UK
a film by
Esther Johnson
featuring
Grenville Squires
cinematography, sound and editing by
Esther Johnson
distribution
Blanche Pictures
Awards
Finalist International Competition 12th Bandits-Mages Festival Bourges, France
Exhibition
The Sheffield Pavilion premiered at the 11th International Istanbul Biennial 10–15.09.09
Solo Gallery Exhibition
Work by Esther Johnson La Vidéothèque Nomade Brass Centre Cultural de Forest, Brussels, Belgium 12.03.15
Group Gallery Exhibition
A Modern Romance 20–21 Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe, UK 03.03.12–19.05.12
Brutalist Speculations & Flights of Fancy Site Gallery, Sheffield 09.09.11
This is Not a Gateway Hanbury Hall, London 21–24.10.10
Urban Voids and Absences Turn-Berlin Gallery 27.04.10–21.05.10
Voges Gallery Frankfurt am Main Germany 10.03.10
Cross-Cutting Sierra Metro Edinburgh 12–22.12.09
Sheffield Pavilion 11th International Istanbul Biennial 10–15.09.09
The Super Estate: EXHIBIT Gallery, London 06.07.09
Film Festival and Special Events
Sheffield Modern Architecture Weekend Picture House Social, Sheffield 14:00 28.10.18
Reel Femme – Portraits DINA, Sheffield 19:00 13.09.17
Showroom Shorts: SYFN Sheffield 08.05.12
12th Bandits-Mages Festival Bourges, France 16–20.11.11
archinoise #1 Christ Church Spitalfields, London 06.10
Sheffield Pavilion Showroom, Sheffield 02.02.10
Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival Germany 10–15.11.09
Civic: Light Night Leeds 09.09
Expo: Leeds 25–28.09.09
Conference and Symposia
Modern Futures: AHRC Workshop and Screening University of Central Lancashire Preston, UK 23.01.15
Local Anaesthesia: the desensitisation of the urban experience 198 Contemporary Arts, London 27.05.11
Elevation is an unique portrait of Sheffield’s in/famous Park Hill estate, created during an eclipse period between clearance and reinvention. Lauded in its early ’60s heyday as a pro-communal network of ‘streets in the sky’, the structure has since been loved and loathed as one of modernism’s most visionary complexes or a crumbling concrete eyesore. Elevation is a poignant memento of a turning point in the estate’s history, as the last embers of its communal ideal flicker out, and the first glimmers of its coming second life can be sensed.
The film comprises two concurrent elements: a sequence of ten fixed-camera portraits from carefully selected vantages around the estate; and a voiceover interview with longtime Park Hill caretaker Grenville Squires, who eloquently describes the structure’s successes and failures.
The Sheffield Pavilion 2009 Publication and DVD Boxset
Commissioned and Funded by Sheffield Contemporary Art Forum [now Art Sheffield] for The Sheffield Pavilion 2009 artists’ film DVD and book publication
Esther Johnson
Esther Johnson