Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum: Exhibition guide

In her first major UK commission, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum expands her interest in narrative world-building through a new series of paintings set within a site-specific installation. Drawing from the social and architectural history of the Barbican, film noir, theatrical set design and crime novels, this new body of work presents the story of Bettina, a new character in the artist’s ever-evolving cast of alter egos.

Bettina arrives in a mid-century colonial outpost and learns to navigate the subtleties of her new rural life. We are invited to explore our protagonist’s world through a series of film sets designed in collaboration with Remco Osório Lobato. These sets evoke domestic spaces, colonial bureaucracies, travel waiting rooms and religious gatherings. Walking through these spaces – which are punctuated by painted scenes of Bettina’s new life and connected by ramps and wooden walkways – a multivalent narrative unfurls exploring ideas of migration, belonging and freedom. 

Sunstrum uses the aesthetic and narrative conventions of film noir to question the idea of the femme fatale – a reductive and often misogynistic depiction of women used in film. Taking inspiration from the Barbican as a space for performance and spectacle, Sunstrum draws a connection between the artifice of film making and the social constructs that control, regulate and punish women who challenge the norm. This is reflected in the exhibition architecture – the film sets’ interiors create the illusion of reality; their exteriors expose the underlying structures that prop them up and make them appear to be true.