In this research, Ellen commissioned a fashion atelier to pattern cut two outfits – the 1930s Hollywood Casting Bikini and Two-Piece Skirt Suit – from the archive photographs of actress (and her own great aunt) Nita Harvey. She then wore the outfits to create a series of performance photographs where, dressed as Nita, she visited key Hollywood location sites documented in the archive. Through feminine embodiment of the costumes, Ellen activates the archive through empathic and affectual methodologies to create new discourse on Harvey's lived experience, objectification and hidden history.
