Duncan Campbell

Bernadette

About this artwork

This film is a captivating portrait of the charismatic political activist, Bernadette Devlin. In the late 1960s Devlin was a prominent figure in the student-led group People’s Democracy and in 1969, at the age of twenty-one, she became the youngest female British MP. Campbell has pieced together vintage film clips, sourced from British and American news archives, alongside animation and a scripted voiceover. The result is an intriguing interplay which builds an absorbing portrait of a passionate individual through the eyes of the media. As Campbell commented, 'I wanted to faithfully represent Devlin... Yet I worked with mediated images of her and writings about her. What I produced can only ever be a selection of these representations…'

Updated before 2020

  • artist:
    Duncan Campbell (born 1972) Irish
  • title:
    Bernadette
  • date created:
    2008
  • materials:
    Colour video projection, transferred from 16mm film, with sound, 37 min., 10 sec.
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Purchased 2008
  • accession number:
    GMA 5021
  • gallery:
  • depicted:
  • subject:
  • artwork photographed by:
    Antonia Reeve
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Duncan Campbell

Duncan Campbell