Theda by Georgina Starr

Archive: Georgina Starr's Theda, a captivating multimedia installation exploring identity, performance, and the construction of persona through the lens of silent film icon Theda Bara.

About Georgina Starr

Georgina Starr is a renowned British artist known for her ambitious, multidisciplinary works that often explore themes of identity, memory, and popular culture. Her practice encompasses installation, performance, video, sound, and sculpture, frequently drawing on cinema, music, and literature. Starr first gained international recognition in the 1990s and has exhibited extensively in major institutions worldwide.

About the Work

Theda centered on the figure of Theda Bara, the legendary silent film actress who became Hollywood's first "vamp" in the 1910s. Bara's constructed exotic persona and her performances in roles that challenged conventional femininity made her a fascinating subject for Starr's investigation into identity and self-invention. The installation combined video, photographs, props, and reconstructed sets to create an immersive environment that blurred boundaries between fact and fiction, performer and character.

Starr's work explored how Bara crafted her public identity through deliberate mystification and theatrical presentation. This resonated with broader questions about authenticity, performance, and the construction of self in contemporary culture. The piece invited viewers to consider how we all perform versions of ourselves, and how identity is something actively created rather than simply expressed.

Exhibition Context

Theda's presentation at Arts University Bournemouth in October 2011 brought a major contemporary artist's work to the south coast, offering students and the public an opportunity to experience ambitious installation art. The exhibition demonstrated the university's commitment to hosting significant contemporary work and enriching the regional cultural landscape.

Artistic Significance

The work exemplified Starr's distinctive approach to making art that is simultaneously scholarly and playful, historically grounded and imaginatively free. By resurrecting and reimagining a figure from cinema history, Starr created a bridge between past and present, raising questions about how women's images and identities are constructed and consumed. The installation's rich visual and conceptual layers rewarded repeated viewing and sustained contemplation.