Fulll Firearms, 2012
Emily Wardill
86 minutes, HD, 16:9

Based on the life of Sarah Winchester and the Winchester Mystery House, Fulll Firearms presents the story of Imelda, a woman haunted by the victims of the guns sold in her father’s company. She uses her inheritance to work with an architect who builds a house for these ghosts. When a group of people squat her half finished building Imelda is convinced that they are the ghosts that she expected.

It is a story of a house build to deliberately disorientate its inhabitants. The narrative touches upon themes of displacement and storytelling, and stands in the tradition of melodrama. The characters find themselves constantly having to adjust their expectations of each other so that they might be able to communicate within each other’s logic. In her films, Emily Wardill creates situations that examine conditions of precarity in society and how these affect people’s relationships with each other. Her films are fostered by improvisations and workshop sessions, that are set up by the artist to develop themes and characters in a collaborative manner.

“Fulll Firearms reframes the history of arms heiress Sarah Winchester in a contemporary context where her haunting is not limited to America and the specter of its own violence en route to manifest destiny, but rather is inundated with the scope of the contemporary international arms trade and the nations that bear the brunt of its success. The house in the film produces an echo, because those who occupy it articulate their voices in relation to the making and writing of a history. Tracing the echoes of actions through the production of social spaces does not remain solely within the diegesis of the film. Instead, it extends to the exchange initiated by Wardill with her collaborators as they produce a film together, and also attempt to implicate the viewer in a film that is also a body – one that is constantly living and growing.” - Jacob Korczynski, 2011

Fulll Firearms is co-commissioned by If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Serpentine Gallery, and Film London’s FLAMIN Productions. It is co-produced by FLAMIN Productions and City Projects with support from M HKA, Antwerp, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe and FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims.

Wardill’s work has been screened at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; Witte de With, Rotterdam; the London Film Festival; and the New York Film Festival. Solo exhibitions include The Showroom, London (2009), Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London (2008), STANDARD (OSLO) (2008) and the performance event ‘The Feast Against Nature’, at PS1 Contemporary Art Centre, New York (2004). In 2006 she featured in the Art Now Lightbox programme at Tate Britain and August 2008 saw her performance ‘Life is a Dream’ at The Serpentine Gallery, London and her nomination for the Jarman Award. Recently, she has been included in group exhibitions at MOCA Miami (2009) and Tate Britain (2009). She currently has a solo exhibition at De Appel and is included in The British Art Show 2010/11. She won The Jarman Award in 2010.