Canberra gallery commissions video portrait of World Cup Squad

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The National Portrait Gallery has commissioned a major video portrait of the Matildas 2023 World Cup Squad. The artwork will seek to capture the team's strength athleticism and cultural impact on Australia.

Transcript

00:00This will be the first portrait of an entire sporting team in the National Portrait Gallery's history.

00:07But it won't be a painting on a wall.

00:11Instead, the gallery has commissioned a video work by Australian Samoan artist Angela Teatia.

00:17It'll capture the 2023 World Cup Matildas squad,

00:21celebrating the time they brought Australians together and cemented themselves as national icons.

00:26The work is still being made, but we do know part of the process has involved getting the team to watch back

00:33the famous and dramatic World Cup penalty shootout against France.

00:38Capturing 23 players has been no easy feat.

00:41The artwork has involved shoots at Matildas training camps at Houston and London and one to come in Melbourne.

00:47The logistics of bringing together 23, all 23 players into a single artwork,

00:53players who are dispersed all around the world. This has been a massively ambitious undertaking.

00:58But we just felt that what the 2023 Matildas achieved was so significant that we had to have the full squad in the work.

01:07I think what the mainstream audience is used to viewing in terms of portraiture is either a painting or a photograph.

01:16And for the Matildas, it really makes sense to have a moving image because they're always in motion.

01:22The work will be unveiled later this year and the artist says it could be about 20 minutes long.

01:28Being a video work, it's designed to travel, meaning the portrait can be displayed around the country.

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