Running in the Starlight (2010) is a music video, realised in sumptuous and glittery handmade detail. Theatrically choreographed, it involves rolling scenes built around the solo performer. It is also a self portrait, where artist Candice Stock performs within a fantasy situation, partying despite being confined to a wheelchair.

The film is a self portrait unhindered by the need to strictly recount the facts as they are. Instead it focuses on other versions of the self and of reality, and different ways of perceiving a situation. In 1998 the artist was diagnosed with Irlen Syndrome (also known as Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome), a condition affecting the individual’s ability to process visual information, and causing optical stress when a page of black and white text is viewed.

Eight years later, shortly after enrolling at Manukau School of Visual Arts, a serious motor accident left her physically disabled, without the use of both legs. The artist writes, ‘My plan was to use art as form of therapeutic release to create a sense of normality within my world of confusion. Instead of feeling better about my situation I came to understand my situation.’
 
Stock creates installations which also function as the sets for her film performance works. She designs and makes every aspect of the work, including sculptural elements, costumes, make-up and jewellery, choreographs, directs and edits the film as well as performing in it. Drawing on the video installation work of contemporary Swiss filmmaker Pipiloti Rist, which often features the artist performing within in dreamlike scenarios, Stock’s work offers a surreal scene which is also entirely materially constructed in real space. Her work proposes a theatre of the possible.