Moyra Davey: The Lives of Others

New York-based artist Moyra Davey switches between autobiography and historical inquiry in her films, photographs and writing. Traversing psychology, literature and philosophy, she frequently takes inspiration from a ‘muse’ – a person, book or place that acts as a catalyst for her works; her sources could almost be a roll call of historic persons of letters, from Sylvia Plath to Walter Benjamin. Adopting the role of researcher, Davey weaves together the characters of her inner and external worlds, the past and the present. Her own family and friends appear alongside these historic figures.

In her last film My Necropolis (2009), which was screened during the 2010 rendition of Glasgow International Festival, Davey is seen wandering through Parisian cemeteries to visit the tombs of celebrated intellectuals like Jean-Paul Sartre and Colette. Interspersed with this is footage of Davey’s family and friends pondering on the meaning of a cryptic letter written by philosopher Walter Benjamin. The letter’s intended meaning is left undeciphered, but it seems that the goal is less important than the process of speculation, which is characteristically slow, discursive and exploratory.

For her latest film, Les Goddesses (2011) – due to screen at Tramway for GI 2012 – Davey has focused on the life story of eighteenth-century writer and women’s rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft, and her daughters, Fanny Imlay, Mary Shelley, and their stepsister Claire Clairmont. The daughters were all romantically linked with Percy Bysshe Shelley and were nicknamed ‘Les Goddesses.’ As Davey paces a sunlit bedroom, narrating their tale with a voice recorder, narrative associations begin to emerge between the characters and her own past – leading us to suspect that it is Davey herself who is the true subject of the film. 

What is it that fascinates you about Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughters?

I first became fascinated by Mary Wollstonecraft because she is such a complex figure emotionally: she was subject to depression and self-destructive behaviour, while at the same time being an astute political philosopher and radical champion of women’s rights. Fanny inherited the depressive trait, but as an orphaned young woman in the early nineteenth century, she was not able to overcome the odds. And Mary Shelley’s life was an unbelievable roller coaster of good, but mostly bad fortune. Something about the trials of these women and their genetic predisposition to depression resonates with my own family.

When you appear in your films in the mode of researcher, with video and voice recorder, is it all scripted or are you truly in an interior world, returning to the past and forgetting the camera?

It is 100% scripted.

Your subject matter has looked to a range of intellectual muses, from Walter Benjamin to Mary Shelley. Do you see your works as cumulatively growing towards a complete psychological portrait of yourself?

I suppose that’s what’s happening, but I do try to avoid (as much as I can) the pitfalls of narcissism by forming a web of connections between myself and others – mostly writers – whose ideas I see myself as filtering, processing, in an attempt to survive, yes, but also to make meaning for others.

Do you find the process of making work therapeutic?

I am only happy when making or writing something, and I adhere, at least for myself, to what Michael Haneke said: artists don’t need shrinks because they can sort it out in their work.