Embodiments/Cutouts
“Inner temporality rarely follows the logic of chronology … [it] moves within more multilayered and multidirectional topologies – folding and unfolding from the moment to full extension, winding and unwinding from fast to slow, conflating past and present into one perception, or uncoiling into the distant future with gliding ease.”
Eva Hoffman, Time (2011)
Embodiment (2023), is a work comprising free-standing paper figures (embodiments), performance and moving image.
In 2017 I began a very personal project, to attempt to exorcise the legacy of a difficult childhood through the act of drawing. Initially the drawings were small but as time went on they became life sized figures that I called 'embodiments'. Folded into each were fragments of memories, bodily feelings and emotions. I cut out the paper figures so that they could stand before me.
I was surprised that they seemed to have agency and to speak their own narratives, quite apart from my own. It became clear that they should be untethered from my past.
In 2022 I invited five members of Three Score Dance, Brighton to come to my studio and choose the 'embodiment' they felt drawn to. They were told that the 'embodiments' were ‘real’ but of a different order of experience. Although they could not move or speak they might be able to feel touch and hear voices. They were not to be used as props or extensions of the human participants and that both human and paper body retained their integrity. Through a series of exchanges the participants were asked to attune to their paper 'embodiment' and form a ‘telepathic’ connection. To ‘hear’ what they had to say. My role was to witness and support.
The dancers were all of mature years. It was important that the participants showed the marking of time upon their bodies and in their memories.They each bought their own humanity, showing kindness and compassion, anger, irritation and sadness, questioning and listening. As the participants took in their paper 'embodiment', it simultaneously drew out from them memories, experiences and emotions. As I stood and watched I found myself strangely consoled. What had started out as an internally focused project had shifted and re-formed outside of myself into a triangle of exchange and empathy between the participants, the 'embodiments' and myself. The growth of communal feeling, the folding and unfolding of time between a group of individuals, is at the centre of the work. My very great thanks and gratitude goes to the participants who were prepared to go on this strange journey with me.
With permission of the human participants it was decided to film the final exchanges. The trailer is on the next page.
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Participants (in order of appearance in the film): Gill Lipson with embodiment Wrestler, Maya Cockburn with embodiment Betty, Michael Munday with embodiment Big Daddy, Anne Rosenfeld with embodiment Gloria, Penny Dyer with embodiment Mother.
The film making team: Nadine Feinson (director), Kezia Feinson Dwyer (cinematography), Andrew Sowerby (editing) and David Thomas (sound engineer).
Images from the filmed exchanges between human and embodiment
Gloria & Anne (Anne Rosenfeld)
Big Daddy & Michael (Michael Munday)
Betty & Maya (Maya Cockburn)
Wrestler & Gill (Gill Lipson)
Mother & Penny (Penny Dyer)