Divya Tamilselvan

Divya is a 2D and 3D animator from Singapore and is based in London. After graduating with her BA in Digital Animation(Honours) in 2016 from Nanyang Technological University she worked professionally for 2 years and freelanced for 1 year before pursuing her MA.

Her earlier films includeTailor-made (2014); a 3D short film which touches on the stereotyping of non-binary people in Singapore and the heteronormative structure that is reinforced within the elderly community, The Next Stop (2015); a 2D short observational satire of long train rides and all their unpleasant encounters, Dumpling (2016); a 3D animated short film about discipline and perseverance.

In her professional career as an in-house motion designer and animator at Singtel, she worked with many companies like Spotify, Grab, Disney, Apple and Netflix. During her time freelancing, she worked with Brands and companies like Laneige, Rolls Royce, Magnum and Netflix.

Her latest animated short film, 'Tether', touches on people in their domestic spaces and how we navigate our personal spaces and unique difficulties.

Tether, much like her previous films The Next Stop and Tailor-made, is centred around observational storytelling. This narrative trope has been of particular focus in her writing research. Collecting anecdotes from people she knows and hyper-analysing what she sees around her, she has developed an empiric sense that informs her narratives.

Understanding the way we interact with our own set of problems is considerably complex, so with her work, she attempts to capture her derived understanding of control and detachment to reimagine it visually.

Tether is a film that reinforces the idea that you never know what anyone deals with behind closed doors. While the initial inspiration behind Tether was built upon her research and writing on self-occidentalism, Tether has evolved to encompass a wider audience. In her initial development, she explores the role of South Asian women in their domestic spaces in fiction through the lens of self-Occidentalism. The parameters of self-Occidentalism in her practice are defined by her argument that South Asian women demonstrate a Western consciousness within their personal spaces, in which Occidentalism and Orientalism operates as a controlling process although they are in opposition to each other. She hopes to continue making films developed from her practice.

Tether, Trailer

Snippet from Tether

Environment Process

Snippet from Tether

This film’s main premise is to emphasise that everyone deals with their own psyche and intersectionality. By observing how Tara, the film’s main protagonist, interacts with her most intimate domestic space, we notice other characters surrounding Tara, and how they behave and react to their own peculiar set of problems. I hope this film resonates with a wide range of younger audiences across different cultures. I feel the mode of this narrative is quite clear; only through inspection and inference, you will be able to fully understand the motivation for this film.

Essentially, the film is a reminder that you only see 10% of someone’s day and you are not usually privy to the rest, so it is important to remember not to judge other through your miniscule lens when you don’t know what anyone deals with behind closed doors.