Artist's Corner: Nicola Dale - Blogpost 3

Third blogpost by artist Nicola Dale. See her previous blogs here.

I have written a short film, ENTER/EXIT, in response to the Italian Esther scroll [John Rylands University Library - Hebrew MS 22]. It is a woman’s story told through men’s mouths. The work both takes on and challenges the scroll’s linear format and decorative content. 

ENTER/EXIT presents an unraveling narrative; but while the scroll that inspired it is richly, lavishly illustrated, my response contains no images, no comforting colours or forms and no visible heroine. It is spare and cold and empty. It is also digital, not physical. It is as plain as I could make it. It is neither fable, nor lesson, nor analogy. It is a retort: viewing the Esther scroll led me to consider the different tiers of work and audience: who speaks, who is spoken for, or to and who is spoken with, or against.

The Italian Esther scroll is so confident in its means of communication, so sure of its audience. This is not just a reflection of its tradition, but of its commissioner’s and designer’s status, wealth and gender. It speaks with the confidence of the like-minded.  This is so alien to my own experience that I wanted to make a piece of work about it. The scroll made me wonder what it feels like to presume an audience, to not question one’s own voice. The scroll told me to speak about speaking.