‘Girls’ is a dual screen video installation which centres on four fourteen year old girls growing up in Claymore, a public housing estate in Sydney’s South West. In a research paper published by Griffith University in 2008, Claymore is described as “the most disadvantaged community in Australia” due to its high rates of crime, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, teenage pregnancy and intergenerational welfare dependency. Through interviews and observation, Blackmore exposes the specific attitudes and behaviours the girls have developed as a way of surviving within their stigmatised community. Rather than presenting them as victims of the welfare state, Blackmore attempts to capture the significance of this moment in their young lives in which they hold the power to break the cycle or continue it.

I was responsible for sound editing and mixing for the work. Drawing from a documentary sensibility, the audio was carefully shaped to retain the intimacy and immediacy of the original recordings. My approach focused on clarity, warmth, and emotional presence—enhancing the natural rhythms of the girls’ voices while subtly reinforcing the spatial and social context of the footage. The sound mix supports the dual-screen format, maintaining coherence across channels while preserving the fragmentary, non-linear structure of the work.

‘Girls’ was commissioned by Campbelltown Art Centre as part of ‘The List’, an exhibition curated by Megan Monte.