Deviant is a collaborative 16mm film addressing themes of collective care, mis/communication, strength and rage in the face of chronic pain and stigma. The film explores and challenges gender-based health inequalities that exert power over who is seen and heard, and who is not, who has access to support, and who does not. Endometriosis is highlighted here as a potent example of women's pain being side-lined as 'deviance'.

 

In the translation of embodied knowledge that may otherwise be difficult to articulate, audio-visual embodiments of unpredictable, hidden and unheard flows of endometriosis experience inform, mark and interrupt physical strips of film. Sections of salt, flotsam and jetsam embedded in the filmstrip rush past and puncture the images as abrasions appear. 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.  

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Commissioned and supported by Unlimited, celebrating the work of disabled artists, with funding from Creative Scotland

Developed during Hospitalfield Interdisciplinary Residency 2021

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Collaborators: The EndoWarriors

Analogue Mentoring: Lydia Beilby

Sound Artist: Amble Skuse

Movement Mentor: Rachel Drazek 

Captions: Holly Summerson

Audio Description: VocalEyes

Producer: BOP

With thanks to EXPPECT

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