Film
It's a Beautiful Game
Video 7 mins 16 secs
©2021 Sarah Lang
December 5th 2021 mark one hundred years since the Football Association banned women’s football stating that “the game of football is unsuitable for females and should not be encouraged”. The ban stood for 50 years.
Artist Sarah Lang’s involvement with women’s football, as a founder of Limehouse Laces, a community girls football club, is an important part of her life and her art practice. This event to mark the centenary runs from November 25th to December 5th at Art in the Docks Space in the Royal Docks. It brings brings together Sarah’s work with that of other artists as well as a full schedule of talks and activities. Speakers include sports journalist Carrie Dunn, author of “Pride of the Lionesses” and “The Roar of the the Lionesses” ; Tim Tate, author of “Girls With Balls - the secret history of women’s football” and Anastasia Kutcha, an artist, designer and footballer who designed the1921 commemorative kit for Goaldiggers FC.
The purpose of the event was to celebrate the pre-ban pioneers of women’s football who played in front of crowds of tens of thousands, before being erased from the game at the stroke of a pen; to consider the present state of the game and how, despite recent progress, the effects of the ban still linger and to look forward and imagine a future where it truly is the beautiful game.
Dances in the Dark
Video 2 mins 39 secs
©2023 Sarah Lang
For Dances in the Dark Sarah explores the concept of the dark as a place where things can be obscured. Without visual cues and their resulting assumptions and prejudices, people cannot be judged at face value. To know something in the dark you are forced to explore what exists below the surface.
Informed by experiences and stories from Sarah’s life, in particular her Asian childhood, which has coloured her whole life but is not visible in her appearance, the work on show seeks to give a glimpse of who she is, rather than who she appears to be.