Hagiography
VIDEO & STOP MOTION | MFA Thesis Project
The term hagiography combines the Greek word meaning holy with the verb to write. A compunction to chronicle the lives of Saints is an ancient one, starting in Roman times and escalating in the pious Middle Ages. The stories of these holy men and women served as inspirational examples—role models to the faithful and testaments to God’s miraculous powers and mysterious ways.
This video continues in this tradition, but with an unconventional and feminist bent. My hagiography combines violently scrawled stop-motion writing with captioned vignettes of saints, dramatically lit and disconcertingly assembled. Catholicism, with its love of symbolism, often represents martyrs with references to their demise (St. Katherine with her wheel, St. Sebastian stippled with arrows). I likewise utilize this graphic device. The video’s structure derives from the litany of the saints (a cantor sings the name of a saint, and the congregation chants pray for us.) I invoke three female saints: St. Apollonia, St. Agatha, and St. Lucy. All three are early martyrs who suffered grave bodily harm in the name of their faith—teeth pulled, breasts severed, eyes gouged. Their stories are ridiculous yet horrifying.
The term hagiography combines the Greek word meaning holy with the verb to write. A compunction to chronicle the lives of Saints is an ancient one, starting in Roman times and escalating in the pious Middle Ages. The stories of these holy men and women served as inspirational examples—role models to the faithful and testaments to God’s miraculous powers and mysterious ways.
This video continues in this tradition, but with an unconventional and feminist bent. My hagiography combines violently scrawled stop-motion writing with captioned vignettes of saints, dramatically lit and disconcertingly assembled. Catholicism, with its love of symbolism, often represents martyrs with references to their demise (St. Katherine with her wheel, St. Sebastian stippled with arrows). I likewise utilize this graphic device. The video’s structure derives from the litany of the saints (a cantor sings the name of a saint, and the congregation chants pray for us.) I invoke three female saints: St. Apollonia, St. Agatha, and St. Lucy. All three are early martyrs who suffered grave bodily harm in the name of their faith—teeth pulled, breasts severed, eyes gouged. Their stories are ridiculous yet horrifying.
Raised Catholic, I love the pomp, ceremony, and archaism of the Church. There are also many things to be troubled by, among these being its patriarchal attitude towards women. Though many Saints met grisly ends, most female Saints’ primary achievement was protecting their purity from pagan potential husbands. Their dedication is admirable, but this situation, I’m afraid, fails the Bechdel test. Oh ye men of little faith! The power and the glory shall not be yours forever and ever. (Let us pray...)