Syd Wrigley is a Chicago based artist, whose body of work attempts to describe intimate emotions/experiences to a larger audience through the mediums of video, poetry, print, and zine making. They specifically explore themes of love as an art, community, queerness, female friendships, femininity, trauma, and punk subculture; making the internal turmoil about those topics external through their art. Their thesis film ‘What’s Inside a Grrrl?’ is a feature length experimental documentary adaptation of their long running zine, and focuses on femme artists in the Chicago punk scene.
Syd
What's Inside a Grrrl? (2026), Still, Sony Camcorder
What's Inside a Grrrl? (2026), Still, Sony Camcorder
‘What’s Inside a Grrrl?’ is a feature length experimental documentary that serves as an adaptation of weirdgrrrlzine. The film includes footage of local bands at shows (LACELES and Girl Rot), interviews with local femme zine makers (Sky Moore and Jess Kotlarz), and reenactments of poems. This work is intended to give the same response to the viewer that would be achieved by reading someone’s diary or listening in to whispered conversation; through the use of collage-like editing, intimate interviews, and spoken word. This work will dissect what it means to put yourself in a space that isn’t really for you– and how community, solidarity, and art create a feeling of belonging that combats “otherness”.