Emily Beaney - ECR Spotlight
Our ECR Spotlight series showcases excellent work in gender and sexualities across departments and Schools at the University of Edinburgh and this year's series begins with a post from Emily Beaney, at ECA, who introduces her experimental film, Deviant.
Deviant
By Emily Beaney
An experimental and collaborative film project seeking to address gender-based health inequalities and communicate embodied knowledge of chronic illness.
Image: Deviant, film still; credit: Emily Beaney
Deviant is a collaborative experimental film communicating lived experiences of endometriosis. In the translation of embodied knowledge that may otherwise be difficult to articulate, the film seeks to address the gender-based health inequalities, misunderstanding and stigma surrounding endometriosis. Deviant was developed through collaborations with The EndoWarriors, an endometriosis community support group. In workshops exploring sound, movement and form, audio-visual embodiments of unpredictable, hidden and unheard flows of endometriosis experience inform, mark and interrupt physical strips of film. The resulting black and white reel of collective footage reveals a jagged coastline, a group of women encountering, traversing, seeking rest and supporting one another in the harsh environment. Sections of salt, flotsam and jetsam embedded in the filmstrip rush past and puncture the images as abrasions appear.
The reel is an embodiment of lived experiences affected and affecting collaborators and audiences. Each time it shares its story the film strip is worn away, marked and changed in ways much like its collaborators, their efforts to share their stories marked in the telling and re-telling of experiences that often go unheard. As time moves on and cycles repeat, bodies and experiences are moved to the point of erasure, urgency is required in reaction and action.
Deviant examines and challenges gender-based health inequalities which exert power over who is seen and heard and who is not, who has access to support and who does not. Addressing themes of collective care, mis/communication, strength and rage in the face of chronic pain and stigma, endometriosis appears here as a potent example of women's pain being side-lined as 'deviance'.
A link to Deviant can be found below:
Author bio
Emily Beaney is an artist and SGSAH (AHRC) funded PhD researcher working with moving image. Her practice-based research centres on gender-based health inequalities and collective care, utilising experimental and collaborative filmmaking to communicate unseen / unheard narratives to audiences. The outcomes of these collaborations have been screened and exhibited in creative, academic and community contexts across the UK and internationally. Partnering institutions have included Edinburgh Neuroscience, EXPPECT endometriosis research centre, Southbank Centre, Alchemy Film and Arts, British Council, Creative Scotland, Wellcome Collection and Glasgow Women’s Library. In 2021 Emily was awarded the Guthrie Award for outstanding work by the Royal Scottish Academy. She has also tutored on postgraduate and undergraduate courses held at Edinburgh College of Art.
https://www.emilybeaney.com - website
@emily_beaney – Instagram
@EmilyBeaney - Twitter