Stella Scott: Featured work — An Invitation to Dream

An Invitation to Dream: Francesca Hayward

Director
NOWNESS | Moncler

As an extension of the exhibition An Invitation to Dream, curated by Jefferson Hack, director Stella Scott translates The Dreamers’ stories through cinematic portraiture for an accompanying series, developed with Moncler. In the first of three films, she connects with Kenyan-born British ballet dancer Francesca Hayward, capturing the co-existence of reality versus dreaming, and how these dual-states enable her to access inspiration.

Meeting in London directly after a performance, Hayward is transported through her dreams as she revisits the processes and the intricacies of her working world – exploring the endurance, athletic strength and physical power that bely ballet’s fairytale image. Acknowledging the raw reality that enables her to dream, Hayward delves into the unseen details of this classical artform, and the obstacles she must overcome to let her creative vision take flight. 

An Invitation to Dream: Jeremy O. Harris

Captured as Dreamer by British director Stella Scott, Jeremy O. Harris revisits the unrushed and unedited thought processes that reinforce his craft in the second of three films, created with Moncler. As writer of the acclaimed Slave Play, the American playwright and actor brings his controversial study of race, identity and sexuality in twenty-first century America to the London stage, meeting Scott as he sits in on rehearsals ahead of the opening night.

In a reflection on the genre’s long history, and the power dynamics and trauma that underscore it, Harris’ internal monologue begins to unfold, revealing how his free-flowing subconscious have informed the production’s development. As he revisits the intricacies of directing a single scene from the play, the escalating noise of Harris’ racing thoughts simmer into fragments of raw inspiration, allowing him to step outside himself, and realize his ambitions in real time. 

An Invitation to Dream: Sumayya Valley

As the project evolves into the digital space, South African architect Sumayya Vally becomes the third Dreamer to expand her story for Moncler in the final film from the accompanying series, directed by Stella Scott. Captured between her studio and the streets of Whitechapel, an open top bus ride journeys into her daydreams, musing on the London locations that informed her 2021 Serpentine Pavilion, and which continue to drive her architectural research as the youngest artist to receive the prestigious commission.

Connecting the social contexts and stimuli that surround her to ideas that take form in her mind, Vally reveals the sense of truth that underscores her practice, developing the raw beauty and physical immediacy of her work as an architect. Considering the potential of dreams to occupy an unlikely political space, she lets observations made around the city evolve through her imagination, allowing her dreams to entertain new worlds that have yet to be realized.