Julia Bardsley

Julia Bardsley is an artist working with performance, video, photography, sculptural objects and the configuration of the audience. 
Bardsley began her career in theatre directing, writing and adapting works for the stage, and was joint artistic director of the Leicester Haymarket & Young Vic Theatres (1991-4). Her work has become known for its experimental use of character, solo performance, and elaborate video and set work in a performance art/visual art context. 
Bardsley's work is significant in its disruption of traditional understandings of theatre; her hybrid practice first developed in collaboration with designer Aldona Cunningham in the 1990s through their innovative work on Hamlet at the Young Vic, which in turn led to a five-year long creation process combining theatre, performance and photography, resulting in the work 12/Stages/3 (a Memory Theatre) as part of the British Festival of Visual Theatre in 1999. 
From the late 1990s onwards her film and video works have been selected for film festivals internationally and collected and represented in collections such as Lux Artists Films and the University of the Arts British Artists' Film and Video Study Collection. She has also created video art work for theatre productions including An Ocean of Rain, at the Almeida Theatre, London, 2008, and Suenos composed by Simon Holt, premiered at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London in 2007 . Her work has toured extensively in the UK and internationally. 
== Key works ==
===== The Divine Trilogy =====
(2003-2009) presented in London, Glasgow, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Croatia, Belgium, and Italy. The three parts of which are titled:
* Trans Acts used religious imagery, combining video, installation and performance, premiered at The National Review of Live Art (2006), and went on to show at Shunt, London (2007)
* Aftermaths: A Tear in the Meat of Vision (2009) Commissioned by the SPILL International Festival of Performance uses the character of a cowboy evangelist to evoke apocalyptic and catastrophic visions of a world in chaos.
===== Improvements on Nature: a Double Act (2009) =====
Produced for Chelsea Theatre, Sacred Festival, Improvements on Nature: a Double Act explored themes of science using imagery of amputations. 'It's the science of Charles Darwin incubated by the traumatised imagination of Mary Shelley.'Programme, Sacred Festival, 2009, Chelsea Theatre, London, 10 November
===== Medea: dark matter events (2012) =====
A performance project inspired by the Medea myth; drawing on themes of sexuality, eroticism and electricity. 
== Further reading ==
* Glendinning, Hugo. (2009). Artsadmin 30. London: Artsadmin. ISBN Special:BookSources/978-0-9524337-6-7|978-0-9524337-6-7. OCLC 609533968.
* Johnson, Dominic (2015), "The Skin of the Theatre: An Interview with Julia Bardsley", The Art of Living, Macmillan Education UK, pp. 219–236, ISBN Special:BookSources/978-1-137-32220-3|978-1-137-32220-3, retrieved 2020-03-05
*Johnson, Dominic, (2014) The Subtle Aggressors; a conversation with Julia Bardsley and Simon Vincenzi, in Theatre and Adaptation: Return, Rewrite, Repeat, edited by Margherita Laera, Bloomsbury Publishing, 
* Pacitti, Robert., Ghelani, Sheila., SPILL Festival of Performance. [Great Britain]: Pacitti. SPILL festival of performance: on agency
* PACITTI, ROBERT. WALKER, LUCY. (2014). THINK TANK WORKBOOK. [Place of publication not identified],: PACITTI Company.
*Staranje = Aging. Silič, Melita. Ljubljana: City of Women - Association for the Promotion of Women in Culture. 2012. p. 100. ISBN Special:BookSources/978-961-92182-6-6|978-961-92182-6-6. OCLC 875322290.
* Bardsley, Julia, (2014) "'U' See the Image of her "i"', (London: BopBardsProjects: An Eye Eye Gym book).Bardsley, Julia, (2014) "'U' See the Image of her "i"', (London: BopBardsProjects: An Eye Eye Gym book). 
==In the media==
<youtube width="300" height="300">cU7rDpn8fCo</youtube>  
<youtube width="300" height="300">qhlTulXRlWE</youtube>  
<youtube width="300" height="300">W9m62VY-5bM</youtube>  
<youtube width="300" height="300">QnaSuxz__08</youtube>
== References ==
==External links==
* Julia Bardsley - Theatre and Dance
* Julia Bardsley - Queen Mary University
* Julia Bardsley | Artsadmin
* Julia Bardsley | Central Saint Martins
* Julia Bardsley - Trans:Acts on Vimeo
Category:People associated with Middlesex University
Category:People associated with Queen Mary University of London
Category:Academics of Central Saint Martins
Category:Theatre in the United Kingdom
Category:Artists
Category:Bachelor's degrees