John Smith b. 1952
The Girl Chewing Gum (1976)
The Girl Chewing Gum is a twelve-minute 16 mm film made by British artist John Smith in 1976, when he was a postgraduate student at the Royal College of Art in London. Shot primarily in Dalston, close to the artist’s home, the film is at once a portrait of street life in East London and a wryly funny critique of the myth of documentary neutrality.