What If We Kissed On The Operating Table by Sydney Mills
Opening Reception July 12th 6-9pm
Show Open By Appointment July 15th-19th 10am-5pm
Artist and filmmaker Sydney Mills will be screening a working cut of her first narrative short film, What If We Kissed On The Operating Table.
What If We Kissed On The Operating Table explores the fractured dynamics of selfhood, healing, and intimacy through the lens of speculative fiction. At a secretive clinic promising miraculous healing, one woman learns the cure is more invasive than she ever imagined. What begins as a medical procedure spirals into a surreal ritual of transformation and rebirth in this hypnotic and grotesque tale of self-care gone feral.
Modern therapy asks us to accept our darkness, but what if we didn’t? What if instead of sitting with what hurts us, we could remove it, give it away? What If We Kissed On The Operating Table explores the idea of healing psychic trauma through disintegration.
An opening reception for What If We Kissed On The Operating Table will be held on Saturday, July 12th from 6pm-9pm. Cast and crew who worked on the film, as well as their friends and family, will be in attendance. The opening reception will also include culinary offerings by multidisciplinary artist Joanna W. Cuervo of KOMETA, the film’s food stylist, further deepening the immersive experience of the exhibition. Inspired by the film’s visceral imagery, Cuervo will craft and serve edible bodily creations, inviting guests to engage with the themes of the film on a sensory level, confronting the boundaries of consumption, embodiment, and intimacy in a literal and metaphorical sense.
Artist Bio:
Sydney Mills is a filmmaker and artist born and based in Los Angeles. She got her MFA in Photography & Media with a specialization in Integrated Media from California Institute of the Arts in 2018, and before that earned a BA in Fine Art with a minor in Cinema & Television from University of Southern California in 2010.
With overtly visceral imagery, Mills dissects the boundaries between the self and the other, the organic and the synthetic, exposing an unsettling amalgamation of human flesh, stripped bare of the comforting veneers that often shroud our daily lives. She confronts her audience with the uncomfortable and the nightmarish, forcing a confrontation with the abject that serves as catharsis, allowing us to confront our anxieties surrounding our bodies and the commodification of our very being.
Mills has been featured in over 50 art shows, film festivals and screenings. She has shown films and artwork internationally in Austria, Germany, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea and Switzerland, as well as at various Los Angeles based art spaces, including The Box, Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, Keystone Gallery, and Monte Vista Projects.
Sydney has carved out a distinct voice as a music video director, teaming up with acts like Blue Stahli and L.A. Witch to create gritty, visually-driven stories. Her narrative film directorial debut, What If We Kissed On The Operating Table, kicks off a bold new chapter in her filmmaking journey.