Abigail Child has been a leading figure in experimental writing and media since the 1980s, having created over thirty film and video works, installations, and six books. A pioneer in the art of montage, Child's early film work explored the intricate relationship between sound and image, redefining narrative tropes and foreshadowing many contemporary and future media concerns.
Her notable projects include the ambitious Is This What You Were Born For?, a seven-part work spanning nine years; B/Side, a film that examines the politics of internal colonialism in New York City; 8 Million, a collaboration with avant-garde percussionist Ikue Mori that redefines the "music video"; The Suburban Trilogy, a modular digital film that prismatically explores the politics of place and identity; and MirrorWorlds, a multi-screen installation that incorporates parts of Child's "foreign film" series to examine narrative excess.
A new film, A Shape of Error, is constructed as an imaginary "home movie" of the life of Mary Shelley.
Child has exhibited her work worldwide, with retrospectives at prominent institutions such as Anthology Film Archives, the San Francisco Cinematheque, Sala Trevi in Rome, Exis in Korea, and Harvard Cinematheque, as well as in important showcases like The Whitney Biennale, the Viennale, and MoMA's Millennium show.
Her work has been featured in numerous international film festivals, including the New York Film Festival, Rotterdam, Locarno, and London Festivals, and is held in the permanent collections of MOMA, NY, Centre Pompidou, and Arsenal Berlin.
Child has received numerous awards and accolades, including the Rome Prize, a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Award, and the Stan Brakhage Award.
Harvard University Cinematheque has dedicated a collection to preserving and exhibiting Child's work, and she has taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she has been instrumental in building an expansive media and film art program, influencing a generation of younger artists.
In addition to her work in film, Child is also a published poet, with five books to her name, including A Motive for Mayhem, Scatter Matrix, and Artificial Memory, as well as a book of critical writings, THIS IS CALLED MOVING: A Critical Poetics of Film, published by the University of Alabama Press in 2005.
