Damaged Goods, 2008

Damaged Goods was commissioned by Animate Projects, funded by Arts Council England and Channel 4 where it was first broadcast in September 2008.

The film marks Barford’s first venture into animated film, creating a new world for his porcelain characters. ‘Damaged Goods’ tells a tragic story played by porcelain figurines residing in a bric-a-brac shop. It explores notions of forbidden love, material wealth and class divisions using traditions of value within ceramics, while also turning the classic ‘rags to riches’ plot on its head with an unexpected twist. “The shelves in the film become the entire world for the characters,” Barford explains, “they represent different strands of society not necessarily through breeding but through material wealth with the top shelves adorned with lavish crystal, silver and gold objects while the floor is only occupied by broken discarded items.”

“I’ve always seen my pieces as scenes from a film – I want viewers to make up what happened before and what might happen afterwards – so it felt like a natural progression to work on a film,”

B. Barford