Jessica McDermott is a photographer and filmmaker.
She graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in June 2008 with a BA Hons in Design; her specialism was Photography. The projects 'Now That We're Grown-ups', 'Dorothy' and 'Life of Brian' all featured in her degree Show. Jessica is very interested in narratives involving people, and human psychology. Her projects tend to involve the effects of society on individuals and her most recent ongoing project 'The Tourists' considers the mentality of those being taken out of their natural surroundings, and how they manage to create a home from home, often moving in large groups with people from similar areas and backgrounds as themselves, investigating areas described by guidebooks and lapping up cultural landmarks that have been manufactured to be tourist-friendly. Basically, how tourism seems to temporarily rid people of their indivuality and individual thought. Jessica enjoys cinematic aesthetics, she loves film and any medium that allows her to play with time. She is interested in people and what they think, but even more interested in what they will do and where they will go, and the patterns they will make - be they exciting, picturesque, or cataclysmic, as their lives are unravelled by time.
Exhibitions and Screenings
2009 The Cinema is Nicholas Ray - The Stand, Glasgow
2008 Ending International Feminists Futures? - Aberdeen University, Aberdeen
2008 Degree Show - Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow
2007 24hour Film Challenge, Westbourne Studios, London
2006 Meet the Ringmasters at the Midnight Circus - Biblocafe, Glasgow
Trivia
In January 2009 Jessica McDermott, Richy Freeman, Kari Stewart, and Steve Urquhart formed POST an art collective. The mission of POST is to host eclectic events bringing together different artists using a variety of different mediums.
