Third Person (Plural) is Aikaterini Gegisian’s feature-length cinematic essay, built from over 200 postwar U.S. informational films and newsreels drawn from the Library of Congress and the National Archives. What begins as an exploration of early European integration history unfolds into a feminist re-reading of the masculine gaze that shaped the ‘new world order’.

This layered work unfolds across a multi-screen installation, a feature-length essay film, and an artist’s book. Originating as a quest to source documents of early European integration processes in the post-war United States, the project unfolds into an expansive feminist re-reading of the hegemonic masculine gaze and its manifestation in material images. The work is a bracing encounter with the gaze that produced the ‘image’ of the world as the new, Western order, bound by the notion of a united Europe, the delirium of the Cold War, and decolonisation processes. Casting a female gaze upon this history, Third Person (Plural) reclaims the unseen perspectives that haunt the margins of official narratives, making visible a collective ‘third person’.

Gegisian will be joined by Shoair Mavlian, Director of The Photographers' Gallery, for a discussion and Q&A.

Contact the host of Third Person (Plural): A Cinematic Essay by Aikaterini Gegisian