LADA Screens: Lucy Sheen
- Time and Date
- 19:00 - 28 Jun 2024
- Venue
Live Art Development Agency
- Address
The Garrett Centre, 117 Mansford Street, London, E2 6LX
Please join us for the screening of Lucy Sheen’s film on transracial adoption Abandoned Adopted Here (2016), a documentary addition to our LADA Screens programme around the themes of voice, care and healing.
Lucy Sheen, who wrote, directed and produced the film, was one of the 106 Hong Kong foundlings that were transracially adopted by predominantly white families in the UK in the 50s and 60s, as part of the Hong Kong Project. Abandoned Adopted Here explores the nature of belonging in the British society and the unheard, silenced, and often erased voices of British East and Southeast Asians with mixed heritages and complex identities.
The film will be followed by a performative reading of the poem I Know This Face by the writer and director of the film, and a panel on the complexities of post-pandemic working in cultural and performative spaces for British East and Southeast Asians. With Jennifer Lim (Chair), Rosa Fong, Lucy Sheen, and Moi Tran.
Following the screening, Abandoned Adopted Here will be available to watch online until 26 July.
Biographies
Jennifer Lim is an actor, filmmaker, theatre maker and artistic director of Moongate. Jennifer’s theatre work includes Worth (Arcola/Storyhouse Chester), The Key Workers Cycle – Midwives Story (Almeida), Freedom Hi! (Vaults), World Factory HOME), Citizens of Nowhere (Edinburgh/Southbank Centre), Wild Swans (Young Vic/ American Repertory Theatre), The Good Person of Setzuan (National Theatre), Into The Numbers (Finborough). Her film work includes Leviathan by Shezad Dawood, British People – The Uncertain Kingdom Anthology, A Monster Calls, Hostel, Act of Grace, When Evil Calls, Piercing Brightness, Code 46 and she recently completed filming The Monster Beneath Us and Say His Name. Her TV work includes Holby City, The League of Gentlemen, Spirit Warriors, Strangers.
Rosa Fong is an award-winning filmmaker. Her films have garnered accolades from the British Film Institute, Arts Council of England and UK Film Council. She has directed programmes for BBC and Channel 4 television. Her recent directing credits include BEAST short film, a series of films using verbatim dialogue. Deconstructing Zoe, her feature length documentary was selected for the Hong Kong LGBTQ+ Film Festival. Rosa is credited as Associate Producer of Cut Sleeve Boys (2006), Front Cover (2015), which screened at Seattle Film Festival, and Suk Suk (2019). She is currently in development with her feature length screenplay called Sigh of the Sea, based on the true story about the forced repatriation of Chinese seamen after the Second World War.
Lucy Sheen is an actor, writer, filmmaker and director. Being a transracial adoptee (TRA) of Hong-Kong Chinese and Dai minority heritage (BESEA), her work focuses on personal experience as a British person of dual heritage and explores the lack of home and belonging, the idea of roots, and identity both from within a community and externally. Her mission and passion are the centring, sharing and elevation of narratives about British East and Southeast Asians, so that their history and contributions to this country are rendered visible. Lucy graduated from the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in ‘84. Her first acting job was the female lead in the Brit feature Ping Pong (1986). Other acting credits include Royal Exchange, Bristol Old Vic, Joint Stock, RSC, Eastenders, Casualty, Silent Witness, Call the Midwife, Shadow & Bone, Witcher. She has received commissions from The Royal Court, ArtsEd and The Globe, and is active on stage and screen.
Born in Vietnam with Chinese Heritage, Moi Tran is an artist based in the UK with training and background in Fine Art and Theatre. Her multidisciplinary practice as an artist, researcher, performance maker and designer explores the intersections between contemporary art and live performance.
About LADA Screens
LADA Screens is a series of free, online screenings of seminal performance documentation, works to camera, short films/video and archival footage. It is part of Live Online, LADA’s dedicated space where you can watch short videos and films drawn from LADA’s Study Room or generated through our programmes and initiatives.
Each screening is available to view for a limited time only, and is launched with a live event at our space in Bethnal Green, London.
This film was selected through an open call for short videos and films around the themes of voice, care and healing.
LADA Screens is curated by the Live Art Development Agency (LADA). LADA is a ‘Centre for Live Art’: a knowledge centre, a production centre for programmes and publications, a research centre setting artists and ideas in motion, and an online centre for digital experimentation, representation and dissemination.
More about LADA ScreensAccess information
The film is captioned. LADA and The Garrett Centre are wheelchair accessible by lift and provide gender inclusive bathrooms.
Should you have any particular requirements please email [email protected] and we will be happy to offer further support.
Banner image credit:
Artwork by Lucy Sheen
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