A Black Thread was a unique project for Film and Video Umbrella in the way that each of its component parts was specifically commissioned and produced for a different partner venue before being united at the conclusion of its gallery tour.

Connecting the separate works are ideas and preoccupations that resonate throughout Smith/Stewart’s practice, in which visceral expressions of individual isolation are echoed, and often countered, by intimations of interpersonal interaction, as the self confronts the appearance of an other and negotiates the implacable reality of the outside world. In one of their most rigorous and elegant works to date, moving images are notable for their near-absence, subordinated to a starkly minimal mise en scène, in which sculptural props and other architectural elements stand in for the form and presence of the human figure.