RICHARD BILLINGHAM
Fishtank

13 December 1998
BBC2 Television

“It's not my intention to shock, to offend, sensationalise, be political or whatever, only to make work that is as spiritually meaningful as I can make it - whatever the medium”. Richard Billingham

A high-rise council flat in the Midlands. The father, the mother, the brother. Some animals. The father drinks a lot, the brother plays around a bit, the mother holds everything together. The older brother films them with his handycam - closely, slowly, intently, recording whatever is going on.

In 1996 Richard Billingham's book Ray's a laugh was hailed as the photo book of the decade. Last year, his photographs were one of the talking points of Sensation. Billingham made his first film - Fishtank - Artangel's first commission for television, made in collaboration with film-maker Adam Curtis and Illuminations TV for BBC2's acclaimed TX series.

The 'video verit' of Fishtank was contained with the compressed space of the flat. Ray sits alone in the kitchen, feeding the fish. Liz plays computer games. Jason swats a fly on the wall. Sometime they talk, sometimes they argue.

Dispassionately yet compassionately, Billingham's film registered the emotional territory of the flat and his family who lived there. He charted a pattern of pathos, despair and hope. Fishtank crafted a terrible beauty from the landscape of family life.

An Artangel commission. An Illuminations Production for BBC Television in association with Artangel.

Fishtank was shown in Aubervilliers and Hamburg in the autumn of 1998.