Tea with Estelle, Listasafn Islands National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland, February – August, 2023
Tea with Estelle is a video webisode series begun in August 2016, in which Estelle grapples with contemporary world events, a world in crisis.
“Estelle” is a working-class English woman from Tottenham in northeast London, whose life began in the shadow of WWII. Her development parallels the reconstruction of British society and all it promised in that moment.
America was Britain’s closet ally. America’s constitution was forged in the incandescence of the Magna Carta. Their societies share a familial bond.
“Estelle” shares her conundrums and basic decency with us, in her efforts to understand a world infinitely more complex than her education prepared her for. While she voted Brexit, she is aware, there is much she does not comprehend.
She is the perfect foil, to make observations about society at a crossroads, in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic where the world is reeling from global forces of seismic change. Her humorous parsing of current events warms our hearts; allowing us to cross the borders of our own defense mechanisms, to join her in her confusion. We relate to her humanity.
She has her finger on the pulse, as only an observer, from a different culture, looking in, from the outside, can. The “Tea with Estelle” series is perfectly timed for an American audience, struggling with its relationship to jobs disappearing, student debt, immigration, medical and housing bankruptcy, deregulation, terror from without and within, politics, moral and ethical issues against the incursion of AI –artificial intelligence.
Estelle is the perfect character to reflect the socially tense times we live in. A time where the peace keeping mechanisms, set in place post WWII, are unraveling specifically under US leadership. She embodies and bears witness to the right / left political divide. She is the bridge to the EU which is trying to uphold democratic ideals, forging a path independent of the United States.
Tea with Estelle: Covid 19, 1.0 at Listasafn Islands National Gallery of Iceland, Reykavik, Iceland, February– August, 2023
Listasafn Islands National Gallery of Iceland, Museum’s permanent collection, gift of Helgi Þorgils-Friðjónsson and Rakel Halldorsdottir
Credits
Michelle Jaffé
Tea with Estelle: Covid 19, 2020
Scriptwriter, Filmmaker, Actress, Editor
11:39 minutes Video
Tea with Estelle webisode series began in 2016 and finished in 2021