Spite Your Face

Artist in Residence

Artist in Residence follows some of the UK's leading artists who spend time in various locations, producing new work in response to what they find.

Make Me Up

Siri wakes to find herself trapped inside a brutalist candy-coloured dreamhouse. Despite the cutesy decor, the place is far from benign, and she and her inmates are encouraged to compete for survival while being watched over by surveillance cameras, 24/7. Presiding over the group is an authoritarian diva who speaks entirely with the voice of Kenneth Clark from the 1960s BBC series Civilisation. As she forces the women to go head-to-head in a series of demeaning tasks, Siri, with the help of fellow inmate Alexa, starts subverting the rules and soon reveals the sinister truth that underpins their world.

Duck

Sean Connery's descent into hell after witnessing Marilyn Monroe's return from the dead...

Feed Me

Feed Me is a larger than life fairy tale, part TV talent show, part thriller, video game in which Maclean plays all the parts

Germs

In Germs, female stereotypes, pseudoscience and promised happiness clash with violent consequences.

Eyes To Me

Sophie goes on a killing spree in a candy-coloured world.

Again and Again and Again

A supersaturated satire with a look into the land of data-addicted monk-like figures and dance-crazed rabbits.

Dr Cute

Dr Cute is a video lecture from an off-brand Care Bear Professor of Sweet and Sinister Studies. A rational dissertation on the nature of cuteness is quickly unhinged by the intense emotional responses the subject elicits, begging the question: what happens when something is too cute?

Native Animals

A multi-character, 8-channel film sits in the centre of the exhibition. Each character, from a porcine union-jack doting politician to a phone-addicted white cat, stand in as an archetype in the UK’s political landscape as it considers its exit from the European Union. Set apart on independent monitors, these anthropomorphized incarnations menace one another through tacit acts of ridicule in a perpetually cycling theatre, falling between farcical and cruel. Maclean points us to the mechanisms of belonging and nativeness at play in the performance of national identity.

Hit Me Baby

With Britney Spears in the news again with her new memoir, we jump back in time to the days of her infamous head-shaving shenanigans. Hit Me Baby is the earliest of Maclean's work included in either programme, but it already shows an interest in dissecting pop culture's cannibalistic desire to both exploit and destroy the means by which it sustains itself – often women.

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Rachel Maclean’s bright, emoji-feminist fairy tale-style touches a new darkness in her first completely animated short.

Over The Rainbow

Inspired by the Technicolor utopias of children's television, Over The Rainbow invites the viewer into a shape-shifting world inhabited by cuddly monsters, faceless clones and gruesome pop divas. Shot entirely using green-screen the film presents a synthetic environment, part toy model, part computer generated landscape, which explores a dark, comedic parody of the Faustian tale, video game and horror movie genres.

I’m Terribly Sorry

I’m Terribly Sorry, a VR work by the artist, will be screened in the backroom and is the artist’s first piece in this medium. Similarly set in a dystopian urban British landscape of manic tourism, I’m Terribly Sorry reflects the desire for constant documentation and performance of the self. The interactive virtual reality piece, like Native Animals, deals with the divisive campaigns of the UK government leading up the Brexit vote, focusing on how these social realities construct new subjects for the 21st century.

It's What's Inside That Counts

Parodies social media, advertising, children’s television programmes and fairy tales, subjects that appear frequently in Maclean’s work. The film borrows techniques global corporations use to sell well-being, youth and happiness by bombarding us with imagery and preying on our anxieties.

The Weepers

'The Weepers' is a 30-minute short film that playfully explores Scotland's relationship with the Gothic horror genre. Drawing on a variety of cultural reference points, including Scottish myth, haunted house movies and Doctor Johnson’s trip to the Hebrides, the film is a surreal exploration of Highland culture post-Clearances, where the number of sheep has gradually exceeded that of the human population.

The Lion and the Unicorn

“The Lion and The Unicorn” is a short film inspired by the heraldic symbols found on the Royal Coat of Arms of The United Kingdom, the lion (representing England) and the unicorn (representing Scotland). The piece uses representations of both alliance and opposition to explore national identity within the context of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence.

Across the Universe

When young dockworker Jude leaves Liverpool to find his estranged father in the United States, he is swept up by the waves of change that are re-shaping the nation. Jude falls in love with Lucy, who joins the growing anti-war movement. As the body count in Vietnam rises, political tensions at home spiral out of control and the star-crossed lovers find themselves in a psychedelic world gone mad.

Happily N'Ever After

An alliance of evil-doers, led by Frieda, looks to take over Fairy Tale Land. But when Ella realizes her stepmother is out to ruin her storybook existence, she takes a dramatic turn and blossoms into the leader of the resistance effort.

Big

When a young boy makes a wish at a carnival machine to be big—he wakes up the following morning to find that it has been granted and his body has grown older overnight. But he is still the same 13-year-old boy inside. Now he must learn how to cope with the unfamiliar world of grown-ups including getting a job and having his first romantic encounter with a woman.

Pan's Labyrinth

In post–civil war Spain, 10-year-old Ofelia moves with her pregnant mother to live under the control of her cruel stepfather. Drawn into a mysterious labyrinth, she meets a faun who reveals that she may be a lost princess from an underground kingdom. To return to her true father, she must complete a series of surreal and perilous tasks that blur the line between reality and fantasy.

Begotten

Begotten is the creation myth brought to life, the story of no less than the violent death of God and the (re)birth of nature on a barren earth.

Blood Tea and Red String

The aristocratic White Mice and the rustic Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak battle over the doll of their hearts' desire.

Wonder Woman

An Amazon princess comes to the world of Man in the grips of the First World War to confront the forces of evil and bring an end to human conflict.

The Tempest

An adaptation of the play by William Shakespeare. Prospera (a female version of Shakespeare's Prospero) is the usurped ruler of Milan who has been banished to a mysterious island with her daughter. Using her magical powers, she draws her enemies to the island to exact her revenge.

At Land

A woman washes up on a beach and embarks on a surreal journey, encountering others and fragmented versions of herself in a quest for identity.

He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword

After experiencing traumatic nightmares of a time now past, the Sorceress summons Prince Adam and Cringer to Castle Grayskull to give Adam a precious, jeweled sword and send the pair to the planet Etheria to investigate its secrets.