Performing the Nita Harvey Archive

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.

© Nita Harvey Archive (c.1933)

© Nita Harvey Archive (c.1933)

© Nita Harvey Archive (c.1933)

Revisiting Union Station, L.A. (Performance as Nita Harvey, 2022)

Revisiting Union Station, L.A. (Performance as Nita Harvey, 2022) (16mm film still)

Revisiting The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, L.A. (2022)(16mm film still)

Revisiting The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, L.A. (Performance as Nita Harvey, 2022)

Revisiting The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, L.A. (Performance as Nita Harvey, 2022)

Revisiting Hollywood, L.A. (Performance as Nita Harvey, 2022) (16mm film still)

Nita Harvey (middle) rehearsing for ‘Search for Beauty’ film, Paramount Pictures, 1933 © Nita Harvey Archive (c.1933)

Revisiting Paramount Pictures (Performance as Nita Harvey) (2022)

Nita Harvey second from left) Paramount Studio Lot, Hollywood, 1933 © Nita Harvey Archive (c.1933)

Revisiting Paramount Studio Lot (Performance as Nita Harvey) (2022)

© Nita Harvey Archive (c.1933)

Revisiting Hollywood, L.A. (Performance as Nita Harvey, 2022)

Revisiting Hollywood, L.A. (Performance as Nita Harvey, 2022) (16mm film still)

Revisiting The Walk of the Stars, L.A. (Performance as Nita Harvey, 2022) (16mm film still)

© Nita Harvey Archive (c.1933)