"This deceptively simple film encapsulates so much of what I love about her work. She pulls humiliation from the past and exposes it in the present, transforming it into power. She is direct about sex and her adolescent body, subtly acknowledging that these boys took advantage of her, yet her unflinching description and her refusal of shame gives her control. Through her dancing, we understand she has left her hometown behind and made a better life for herself."
"At 19, this piece of work took hold of me. I had recently moved to London from a sad city by the sea, clutching the dream of escape and leaving my past behind. I wanted the city to transform me, and Emin's video spoke to that wish; the tingling thrill of becoming someone new. I bought Strangeland in the gallery bookshop and consumed it in gulps."
Tracey Emin uses grainy footage of Margate—cliffs, cafes, arcades and the sea—paired with a voiceover about competing in a 1978 disco dance championship. She describes dancing as freedom until older men she slept with chant "slag," forcing her to flee. She names those men and later appears dancing to You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) by Sylvester, reclaiming agency. Emin extracts humiliation from the past and exposes it in the present, transforming it into power. She is explicit about sex and her adolescent body, acknowledges being taken advantage of, refuses shame, and portrays escape from a working-class hometown toward a transformed life in London.
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