Emily Speed: Rooms Designed For a Woman

A film and installation exploring the politics of the built environment.

Image: Emily Speed Rooms Designed for a Woman 2017 video still. Courtesy and copyright of the artist.

Tate St Ives are temporarily closed until at least 1 May, in line with advice from Public Health England.

Rooms Designed for a Woman 2017 reflects on how buildings have traditionally been designed and planned by men, while women have tended to spend the most time within them.

Inspired by Speed’s own collection of photographs of architects with their building models, the film is comprised of a sequence of vignettes bringing together bodies and architecture. A man surveys and builds models made of foamboard and cake; women occupy and interact with these models in playful and performative ways. The film is presented in an immersive environment designed by Speed and accompanied by drawings and other materials.

Part of the In Focus programme, which features works that connect with other exhibitions, displays or public projects at Tate St Ives. Rooms Designed for a Woman offers a response to the corresponding Naum Gabo exhibition. Speed’s work reflects Gabo’s interest in architecture as well as his architectural acrylic glass costume designs for the ballet La Chatte 1926–7, while also offering a contemporary perspective on the modernist canon.

Rooms Designed for a Woman was commissioned by Yorkshire Sculpture Park as part of Re[construct].