Alice Theobald Perfection is a Lie (An Ode to your Potential)

How do you know when you are ‘living your truth’? What does ‘living your best life’ really mean? What influences our definitions of success and failure, informing our future aspirations and personal goals?

During her time as an Incidental Artist at Eastside Projects Alice has been building on research and ideas around authenticity, exploring how we understand the gap between professional and amateur, success and failure. Interested in the politics involved in borrowing from different disciplines and cultural movements – like DIY or Punk – she has been considering what it means to be un-trained or an amateur, and how success is measured in contemporary society.

Perfection is a Lie (An Ode to your Potential) is an immersive installation centred on an experimental documentary film directed, edited and musically scored by Alice. Filmed in the style of a cinéma vérité documentary it was shot during Summer 2024 over the course of a series of workshops at the Midlands Arts Centre with a group of year 6 children on the cusp of moving to secondary school, and a group of adults who Alice met when participating in the MAC’s Improv Theatre courses.