HOW IT ALL STARTED
“It was a glorified themed party at first. I had noticed that many of my friends were very body conscious. Some I knew had eating disorders and there were others who had experienced abuse. But it was also those who were without a specific trigger. I wanted to put them in front of a camera in the safety of a group and encourage them to free themselves a bit and feel good.
Initially, I invited a group of girls to come to my house and bring as many different costumes as they could find. I borrowed a video camera and invited a photographer and we began from there.”
The event resulted in a photographic interpretation of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper and the video was a choreographed group performance using darkness and neon glow accessories to accentuate movement.
Kitty cut together a short film of the performance, Neon Fame, which received a genuine and positive response from the women participating. Kitty was inspired to continue the project with more seriousness with the intent of reaching more women locally and eventually globally with her art and her message. Thus, The Weird Girls Project began.
To date, there have been 24 episodes of The Weird Girls Project, each with its own unique concept and message. It has received international acclaim and Kitty has won short film awards with various pieces.
The series has been sponsored and commissioned in Iceland, Europe and Asia, often produced as branded content.
The Icelandic branch of UN Women chose The Weird Girls Project as a way to visually announce the name change from UNIFEM in 2011. Converse China then selected Kitty for an artist sponsorship in 2012 which had her creating and producing multiple short films in China, bringing about the relatively new idea of pushing personal boundaries to everyday Chinese women. This was followed by a 3 month residency at The Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai where she focused on other mediums including developing installation, painting and performance.
Following her success in China, Kitty was commissioned to use an Episode of the series to help Blue Lagoon redirect their brand. Next she was invited to produce an episode of The Weird Girls Project in Germany and was honoured as the opening work for the 2013 Nordischer Klang Nordic arts festival, where she also held a solo exhibition and artist talk at Krupp Kolleg in Greifswald.
The most recent episode of The Weird Girls Project was released in June 2015, a collaborative piece with music by CREEP featuring Sia. It was featured in art and cultural press worldwide and won Best Icelandic Music Video at Northern Wave Film Festival in 2016.
Since then The Project paused whilst Kitty worked on other mediums. Now, in 2018, The Project is returning with an Episode and a retreat inspired by the ethos of The Weird Girls Project.
Image from the first Episode, photo by Dominique Gyða Sigrúnardóttir.