Biography
Susi Arnott started adult life as a research biologist, working in laboratories in Minneapolis and London.
Making small films about other scientists awakened an urge to photograph and film the world and people around her, and led to a radically different life via training at the National Film and Television School. At this time, it was the crucible for observational cinema and documentary students were encouraged to train in technical skills in order to have a more direct relationship with their films. This led to camerawork on on experimental fiction (eg. 'Brigit and the Drowning Man' with Mina Courtauld, 'The Weatherhouse', dir. Joanna Woodward, and 'Money Talks' dir. Alrick Riley, both for BBC2).
Three films in Papua New Guinea cemented her interest in international development and social justice and she continued to work with anthropologists (eg.'The Charcoal Burners', dir.Colette Piault) and on projects across Africa and Asia. Lightweight equipment and laptop editing were the inspiration for projects like 'Home on the Range', where Ethiopian pastoralists could tell their own stories about drought and survival, with meticulous translation in the field bringing their unmediated voices to an international audience via BBC World. Her company Walking Pictures was founded to produce films with this ideology and recent freelance work as observational camerawoman has taken her to Ethiopia, Kenya and Nepal as well as Yorkshire and Scotland.
The coming of small-format video also allowed her to experiment even within UK television commissions - for example, allowing her to collaborate and film with children in their own environments while producing a series on poetry with Michael Rosen, or to make cut-out animations about mathematical problems in 'What If?' (both for Channel 4).
Work on 16mm.film continued with the artist/film-maker Peter Todd, for whom she shot 'To Red', 'An Office Worker thinks of their Love, and Home' and 'Where You Had Been'.
Her first sound-only piece was to accompany the exhibition 'Unquiet Thames', by photographer Crispin Hughes (Museum of London, 2006). Since then Arnott has begun making her own work for galleries, most recently with a stand-alone Blu-ray piece as part of their joint exhibition 'Stone Hole' (2009).
The film 'Estuary' (2008) was originally made for the Quay Gallery in Cornwall but since a chance meeting on the 2008 Cape Farewell expedition, is now also used by geology academics to draw students in to the consideration of time and duration in geomorphology. This synthesis of art and science informs much of her work and drives the current collaboration with University College London Department of Chemistry. Arnott is currently researching another film on growth, form, time and human activity, this time around plants rather than inorganic chemistry, and developing the 'Stone Hole' project for a touring exhibition and book.
ACADEMIC AND TEACHING
Currently Hon.Reader in Visual Anthropology, University of Manchester
Cape Farewell 2008 voyage - facilitator and camera/editor (Iceland-Greenland-Canada, British Council)
Course tutor, BA Film and Video - London College of Communication, University of the Arts (2006)
Facilitator/tutor, Al Ain Forestry project - SOS Sahel Sudan (2002)
Course tutor, MA Television for Development - University of Reading (1997-8)
Facilitator/tutor, 'Solidarity Boys'/Global Voices (Kenya - Oxfam, 1998)
Facilitator/tutor, Bujuburam refugee camp for Liberians (Ghana - UNHCR, 1996)
Visiting tutor, MA Television for Development - University of Southampton (1995-6)
Associate of the National Film&Television School (1990)
PhD University College London (1983)
BSc.Biological Sciences, University of Nottingham (1978)