OFFICIAL SELECTION: LET RIP SELECTED FOR QUEERBEE LBGTQ FILM FESTIVAL

LET RIP: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF SEEING AND NOT SEEING (2019)

'New film 'Let Rip: A Personal History of Seeing and Not Seeing' (Duration 5:35 minutes, 2019) by UK based artist, curator and writer Dr Lee Campbell is set within the context of gay male adolescent reaching sexual maturity in 1990s suburbia. Campbell's film is an honest and sincere account and reflection upon personal narratives, reconfigured and re-understood' Balaclava-Q, 2019. 

LET RIP: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF SEEING AND NOT SEEING (2019) presents a personal history of seeing and not seeing to confront the politics of seeing and underline how validating seeing can be but also the difficulty of not being seen. Not overly confessional but relaying frank autobiographic details of my actual lived experience, it tells the story of me being a gay teenager growing up in 1990s suburban Britain and explores the ways that people have looked at me and how that affects me. As the film unravels, written placards juxtaposed against a moving background panning a kaleidoscopic cornucopia of hand pencil drawings, photographs and paintings produced over the course of over 15-20 years present a personal narrative, a personal archive. This produces various levels of fragmentation, jarring and visual versus verbal interruption. Shards of colour (light illuminations) literally ‘rip into’ the black and white imagery symbolising the awakenings that I came upon in my queer youth both emotionally, mentally and sexually. Whilst what is presented can be read as one person’s (my) narrative , so too can it easily be read as lots of different voices layered to talk about wider levels of experience with various references to cultural context that (any)one can relate to: George Michael, late night tv, bad porn. 

LET RIP: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF SEEING AND NOT SEEING revels in the tension between putting something out into the world but presenting in such a way that it does not feel like an outpouring that can make the viewer feel like they are intruding. Its intention is to disrupt the boundary between public and private where the writing, paintings and drawings which contain ‘that’ level of outward-ness cleverly provide a ‘way in’ for other people. 

As a teenager, you do not really know who you are. Let Rip is a self-reflection - a ‘this is what it was like’ to come to terms with my homosexuality; of me finding somebody attractive (men) but not really knowing what I am. Some ‘rips’ reveal imagery and text quickly whilst others are slow - how things come to you over time. Let Rip is an excess of snippets from my life and moments of recognition pertaining to the desire to be seen but not wanting to be seen at the same time.