British Council Logo UK Films Database
Project Detail

If I Could Name You Myself (I Would Hold You Forever)

Synopsis

Cotton is a plant with connotations that far surpass its delicate white flowers, bringing to mind issues of enforced labour, of exploitation and of colonialism. Yet the very crop for which Creole women were forced into labour, offered a form of herbal resistance: cotton root bark could be used as birth control. Herbal knowledge carefully gathered and held, was used amongst the women to defy a lineage of servitude. Beneath the inherent violence of the slave economic system, we find quiet resistance and moments of deep, loving rebellion. IF I COULD NAME YOU MYSELF (I WOULD HOLD YOU FOREVER) is in memoriam of this legacy.
Artist Film Commission for HOME, Manchester, March 2021

Details

Year
2021
Type of project
Shorts
Running time
7 min 58 sec
Format
digital
Director
Hope Strickland
Producer
Jessica El Mal

Genre

Experimental Woman Director

Categories

Artist Project and Video / Experimental

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

rhstricklandspence@gmail.com

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

I'll Be Back I'll Be Back

Director: Hope Strickland

Year: 2022

Existing at the convergence of history and myth, the Haitian maroon leader François Mackandal returns to disrupt the colonial logic of the archive.

A 3d printed of a female duet displayed in a vitrine in front of a projection of a digital image of the split second of the duet captured in photogrametry Loss.y

Director: Lisa Jamhoury

Year: 2026

Situated at the physical-virtual threshold, loss·y memorializes corporeal passing and digital rebirth. The work intertwines animated sculptural “dances” with interactive spatial audio, inviting audiences to navigate invisible thresholds as they move. loss·y presents three split-seconds of a motion-captured female-female pas de deux: each moment is suspended in a vignette that overlaps projection and 3D prints encapsulating the dance in sculpture, with spoken-word poetry and spatial sound design. The installation’s audioscapes blend cold technical facts, accounts of digital dysmorphia and surveillance, and computer-generated sampling, creating an elegy to the vital body that is at once human and digital. On its surface a critique of today’s techno-society, loss·y collusively takes up digital reduction and surveillance as creative media, revealing reverence for the uncanny wonder that pulls us forward into our new, hybridized world. Official Selection SXSW 2026

Dance Experimental Music Woman Director
An Immersive Theatre / XR image of a courtroom with large television amongst a wraparound screen with scenes of humanity GAWD v. The People

Director: Yamil Rodriguez, Ivan Alejandro Diaz Cardenas, Stephen Henderson

Year: 2026

In GAWD V. THE PEOPLE, the audience is part of the court, it’s an AI-led tribunal where humanity is on trial for the right to remain on Earth. Volunteer audience members become witnesses aided by agentic legal aids as we defend our continued existence against Nonhumans testifying against human impact. Surrounding projection environments and evolving courtroom visuals transform the space to reflect the trial as evidence accumulates. Presided over by a darkly humorous Judge, GAWD, each performance culminates with an improvised verdict on humanity's survival and what the conditional terms will be. Official Selection Cannes Film Festival 2026 - Immersive Competition - World premiere

Comedy Drama Sci-Fi