TRACEY MOFFATT (IN COLLABORATION WITH GARY HILLBERG)
Born 1960 in Brisbane, Australia. Lives and works in Sydney, Australia
 
© Women Make Movies, New York
Tracey Moffatt (in collaboration with Gary Hillberg), “Lip” (video still), 1999 © Women Make Movies, New York
 
Tracey Moffatt studied Visual Communications at the Queensland College of Art, Australia. She graduated in 1982. Her first solo show of photography took place in Sydney in 1989. Moffatt first gained widespread critical attention for her short film “Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy” (1990), which was an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, France, that year. Her first feature film, “Bedevil,” was shown in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 1993, and her documentary films and music videos have won critical acclaim. Moffatt's photography is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, USA, and in the Tate Gallery in London, United Kingdom. 

Gary Hillberg is a filmmaker and film editor, based in New York, who has collaborated with Moffatt on a number of occasions.
 
Contribution: Participate in Station 2: Aarhus Art Building, Aarhus, with “Lip,” 1999. Video, 10 min. Courtesy of the artists and Women Make Movies, New York. Moffatt's entertaining video collage reveals the narrow margin Hollywood has allowed black actresses to shine in. Giving lip is proven an art form in these scenes from 1930s cinema to present-day movies featuring a remarkable roster of undervalued actresses and their more celebrated white co-stars. Moffatt and Hillberg's rough, no-budget assembly effectively highlights with familiarity and humor the disturbing realization of how black characters and white characters still interact on screen, under Hollywood's eternally backwards eye.