A London artist famed for using her own body as a camera is premiering her new British exhibition in Blackpool.

Artist, photographer and ventriloquist, Lindsay Seers, has also created a short film about Blackpool specially for the new exhibition showing at Blackpool's Grundy Art Gallery, Queen Street.

The 39-year-old's film, Under the Influence of Magicians, charts the coincidences linking her and her ventriloquist aunt, Barbara Seers, with Blackpool magician, Cyril Critchlow, and Blackpool's varied past.

Images such as the Grand Theatre and the pre-war Midget Town attraction at Blackpool Tower, also feature in the film.

Lindsay said: "I really wanted to make a piece that could relate to Blackpool and reflect some of Blackpool's history. It seems like a really extraordinary place.

"When I was in Blackpool I went to see Funny Girls and I thought, in a way, it was part of that sort of tradition, the spectacle of it and the audience being quite ordinary people, looking at these very extraordinary acts."

But Lindsay hopes her work will help people realise there were real lives behind the ogled' attractions. She said: "I wanted to try and make it human, and I'm hoping it won't offend anybody."

The exhibition also includes a two-headed ventriloquist's dummy, known as Sailor Bill. "I have been using a ventriloquist's' dummy, so when I was offered a show in Blackpool it seemed like a very clear link to variety, and the ventriloquism," she said.

Some of the dummies on show also have cameras inside them, a nod to Lindsay's previous work when she made her own mouth into a camera, using her lips as an aperture and shutter.

"The dummies are like an alter ego of me," she said. "I've done this at other exhibitions. I get a big collection of all the people and how they react to what they see. I collect them all into a book at the moment, but in the past I've asked the gallery to put the pictures up."

The exhibition, organised by art firm Gasworks (London), is at the Grundy until June 10. Admission is free, and the gallery is open Monday-Saturday, 10am-5pm (except bank holidays).