Emily Beaney
Deviant
16mm film: 14:12 (work in progress)
'Deviant’ is an experimental moving-image project that seeks to represent women’s lived experiences of endometriosis. Addressing gender-based health inequalities and ‘diagnostic imperialism’, which exerts power over who has access to support and who does not, this project examines the label of ‘deviance’ when applied to women’s bodies, using endometriosis as a potent example of women's pain being side-lined as deviance. Working collaboratively with women in Scotland, multi-sensory approaches to representation aim to reveal the internal sensations, thoughts and emotions of endometriosis experience that remain hidden / unheard.
Commissioned and supported by Unlimited, celebrating the work of disabled artists, with funding from Creative Scotland
Developed during Hospitalfield Interdisciplinary Residency 2021
Risky Bodies
16mm film: 10:04
'Risky Bodies' examines the label of ‘vulnerable’ as an individual and collective identity during the Covid-19 pandemic. Through the lens of a mother-daughter collaboration, we explore the complexities and possibilities of shared vulnerability, seeking to understand and represent shifting perceptions of interdependence and care.
Developed by Emily and Cherrie Beaney during a Summerhall Lab. The film was screened, followed by a Q&A with the artists, in November 2021 with thanks to Summerhall.
The Body as it is Lived
Research Film: 07:06
What is a body? This research film explores mind / body dualities and phenomenological conceptions of embodiment from the perspective of a 'sick' body.
Rising
Silent moving image: 03:06
Footage of the water surface, above and below the sea, are combined to generate a sense of disorientation, representative of confusions surrounding the recent pandemic and the desire to find a way out.
ArtWalk Projects outdoor film festival, 2020, Edinburgh.
Breaking the Fall
A trilogy of experimental documentaries: 10:45
Breaking the Fall is a trilogy of experimental short films, created in collaboration with my mother, Cherrie Beaney. The films reveal embodied, personal and social experiences of illness, care and interdependence that are often over-shadowed by dominant medical, doctor-patient relationships. Within the context of our mother-daughter relationship, we explore how illness and care is enacted in the familial setting, drawing upon Johanna Hedva’s (2015) 'Sick Woman Theory' to ‘take seriously’ everyday acts of care which are historically feminised and therefore made invisible."
Collaborator: Cherrie Beaney
Music (02:03 - 06:09): Alabaster dePlume
Research and Development Funding thanks to Stellar Quines and BOP Theatre
Speculations
Experimental documentary: 03:30
An exploration of sensory experience on screen. Research focused on the intersection between film and medicine, attempting to portray a phenomenological experience of epilepsy.
Supervisor: Amy Hardie
Music: Jon Hopkins