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Un/picking, re/threading

Image Descriptions:

Two close-up colour photographs of a pale person’s skin; in the first photograph in the bottom half of the photograph is blurred pink-red coloured flesh, with yellow-orange hard skin in the centre on top of the fleshy mound. Hooked into the dry skin is the tip of a silver metal tool (a stitch unpicker, used in sewing), which curves round into a sharp tip, which pierces the skin. Above the silver tip at the end of the tool is a blood-red plastic covering, which is brightly coloured and sharply in-focus; it looks like a drop of blood, like that which should be coming from the incision of the metal into the skin, though this isn’t visible. The second photograph shows the same pink-red flesh which is more in-focus to reveal the micro-relief of the skin, and the yellow-orange dry skin still in the centre of the frame. A piece of black thread has been sewn through the skin, entering from the left hand side of the dry skin (where the thread is in focus), and exiting the right-hand side of the dry skin.

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Physiognomic experiments

by Sophie Hoyle

Image Description: Two close-up colour photographs with metal callipers pressed against the face of a pale person, measuring the bridge of the nose in the first photograph and the eye socket in the second photograph.

‘Aquiline nose, large at the base’ Burton, R.F. (1893). Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to AlMadinah & Meccah

‘Hollow Eyes’ Charles M. Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888)

Historically, travelogues of (usually extremely wealthy) white Western people visiting the SWANA region included many descriptions of physical features, and the practice of physiognomy or interpreting a person’s attributes and values from their physical form, and by extension the characteristics of a whole community and society. In Orientalist constructions of the SWANA region, this may include a broad range of conclusions, usually that they are ‘wild’ and ‘passionate’, or ‘untrustworthy’ ‘lazy’ and less ‘civilised’ as a rationalisation for imperialist intervention and colonial invasion.

This assumed white physiology as the norm, and in order to differentiate people who looked different to this they were usually compared to food or landscapes in the region rather than as people, including phrases like ‘almond eyes’ or ‘olive skin’.

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FOSSILS

by Mariette Moor

Close-up of a glossy bright yellow sculptural tube, most likely from some industrial structure, with a small fly resting on the edge, covered in the glossy yellow paint.

Further close up of the previous image, a fruit fly is forever moulded to a bright yellow structure as it has been covered in its yellow finish. The entire body is visible in the middle of the image, wings, legs and all.

A daddy long-leg preserved in yellow resin, with its long legs stretching across the image. Also visible is other fragments, bubbles and organic traces.

1. TreePupper, r/WellthatSucks/, Reddit, This fly forgot to fly Away. 1y ago. Access Online.

2. Detailed Fossil Daddy Long-leg and Ant in Baltic Amber, 44 Million Years Old, Kaliningrad Russia.

Studio

3. SOME PEOPLE HAVE THE EXPERIENCE OF FINDING THEMSELVES IN A SPACE AND HAVING NO IDEA HOW THEY GOT THERE.

by Helen Stratford

The photograph shows an image of a computer monitor displaying a close-up view of a hand drawing on a hand-drawn chart or grid filled with handwritten text and heavy black lines written in deep black charcoal, making much of the content obscured. On the screen in front of the image white text in typewriter font reads: 53. Have you had personal experiences with the supernatural? behind the screen there is pink and cream fabric printed with hand-drawn circles, lines, grids and dashes in red, white and black lines. In front of the screen, partially obscuring it are machine embroidery charts and diagrams in red stitching on red fabric.

The photograph shows an image of a monitor with a black frame displaying a close-up view of a hand drawing heavy black lines in deep black charcoal, in the image golden early morning sunlight casts a long shadow of the hand across the paper. On the screen in front of the image white text in typewriter font reads: 3. Some people have the experience of finding themselves in a space and having no idea how they got there. Behind the screen there is pink and cream fabric printed with hand-drawn circles, lines, grids and dashes in red, white and black lines. In front of the screen, partially obscuring it are machine embroidery charts and diagrams in red and pale blue stitching on red fabric. Further behind the fabric and the screen on the right there is a view of a doorframe and a plug socket indicating this is a domestic space. — The photographs shows an image of a monitor with a black frame displaying a close-up view of a hand drawing heavy black lines in deep black charcoal. On the screen in front of the image white text in typewriter font reads: *53. Have you had experiences of the supernatural?* and 3. Some people have the experience of finding themselves in a space and having no idea how they got there. Behind the screen hangs pink and cream fabric printed with hand-drawn circles, lines, grids and dashes in red, white and black lines. In front of the screen, partially obscuring it, are machine embroidery charts and diagrams in red and pale blue stitching on red fabric. In the bottom image, behind the fabric and the screen there is a view of a doorframe and a plug socket.

I’ve been experimenting with bringing together some of the things I have been exploring during the residency in a space that might form an exhibition proposal. These photographs form a sketch towards what that might be. One of the things I want to develop is an immersive and sensory space that speaks to crip time and optimisation processes in ways that play with the wellbeing visual models and assessment devices I have been collecting. Many, if not all, of these models and devices are owned and invented by physicians and psychologists; researchers and scientists who patent, trademark or commercialise specific psychological frameworks. All propose to change your life for the better. The image brings together a film of drawing and redrawing a mental health assessment matrix in a space filled with printed drapes and embroidered textiles. Together, they pay attention to the repeating forms and labour embedded in the models; making them into a series of unending patterns that make visible the ridicularity of their amount. At the same time they translate them into textural and sensory fields which, like the accidental door frame and plug socket in the second image, rub up against these neat and tidy models of progress.

Studio

FUTURE : NOW

by Helen Stratford

A photograph of an unopened white envelope on a wooden plywood bookshelf filled with architectural magazines and journals. Only the spines of the journals are visible. The envelope sits in the space remaining on the shelf in front of the journals. On the envelope hand-written text reads "To Helen. Wishing you all the best for your special birthday with Lots of Love from Mum." The handwriting is old-fashioned joined up writing with flourishes, written carefully in black pen in the middle of the envelope. In the top right of the image, a thick hardback book rests horizontally on top of the journals, satisfyingly filling the remaining gap between the next shelf. The book is red with the words healthy on the spine in white capitals and Caitja underneath in black capitals.

I mentioned this image in the group meeting. It is a photograph of an unopened card written by my mum for my 60^th birthday which won’t happen for a while yet. My mum accidentally wrote it to me instead of my sister last year. It occupies a bookshelf in my house, waiting. In the meeting Mariette commented how it relates to questions of measurement that I have been exploring elsewhere in the blog and the residency. Its writing prompts a judgemental measure of what is incorrect (the wrong day, the wrong year, the wrong person) but, in another reality, it generates a different measurement of time. This is what I love about it. In many ways, the unopened card is an adherence to rituals; to processes; to obligations. At the end of the day, it is just a birthday card, like the multiple others I have received from my mum over the years. Yet, it sits in-between time, in front of architectural journals from up to three decades ago and below a book on Healthy Scepticism from this year. And at this time, it contains precious time; a time when many things might happen.

I devised a performance piece that had instructions for what to do in the case of different eventualities, who might open the card and who will be thanked for the love it contains. The unopened card makes me think about three people and their connections to each other. Perhaps when it’s opened it will have been written to my sister after all. It is a deeply sentimental, bittersweet and poignant object, and I wondered whether to post a picture of it because of that. But after our conversation I post.

Studio

thinking about

by Mariette Moor

I’m thinking about the difference between painting over something, wrapping it, compressing it, binding, embalming or mummifying it, and all the skins these produced. I’m thinking about how unusual harvestmen/daddy long legs are. I’m thinking about looking away, looking downwards, and eradicating hiding spots. I’m thinking about eyes that muddy, magnify, or mosaic. I’m thinking about what the opposite of sky view is. I’m thinking about how long I’d have to stay sealed to a wall for my heart rate to stop objecting to my upright position and accept a new orientation. I’m thinking about how porous skin is, and how sponges are usually the dirtiest thing in a kitchen. I’m thinking about the ice pack I’m about to press to my forehead, the ice machine supporting my dad’s knee post-butchering, the frozen peas on my mum’s face. I’m thinking about how insects like bees and ants clean each other, licking each other’s wounds and scraping parasites or spores off their bodies before they can hurt the whole, but then termites seal the sick within individual burial tombs. I’m thinking about isolation, about illness, about how I skirt around them because I’m scared they’ll swallow even more parts of me. I’m thinking about Clarice Lispector and how she understood that the most minuscule objects can completely unravel us. I’m thinking about how I want my access support artist, Steph, to help me wrap my feet in dough on Saturday or work out how to turn a Reddit thread into a song. I’m thinking about how actually I need her to help me finish my PIP application. I’m thinking about what I really really want her to do – wash my hair, hoover under my bed, and hand-wash my compression garments. I’m thinking about dust as always. I’m thinking about how long I want to spend editing this.

Sepia-toned photograph of the Shroud of Turin, showing front and back impressions of a human figure, faintly visible across the length of cloth. — *The Shroud of Turin,* 1978, Barrie M Schwortz Collection.

Close-up photograph of the translucent, amber-coloured larval stage of a black vine weevil, lying on dark soil with its legs and segmented body clearly visible curled up. — *The Larval/Pupa stage of a Black Vine Weevil,* 2024, Robert Heemskrerk.

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Measured Speech

by Sophie Hoyle

Image Description: A close-up colour photograph of a pale person’s face with a silver metal measuring instrument (sliding calipers) around their tongue. To the centre-left of the photo the person’s pink-red tongue is sticking out of their mouth, and held in the grip of the metal calipers, which has two straight metal edges that taper to the left, just above and just below the tongue; they almost look like blades of scissors. There is a blurred outline of their lips behind the calipers. To the centre-right of the photo, the calipers are measurements in black numbers (showing centimetres and millimetres), punctuated by straight black horizontal lines. On the calipers there are different metal parts of different thickness showing that it has adjustable moving parts, and small black screws holding some of these different parts in place. The cold grey-silver colours of the metal contrast with the warm pink-red colours of the tongue and skin.

‘Measured Speech’ is a phrase used to describe someone who is talking in a slow, considered and regulated way. I’m interested in how we learn speech for communication, self-presentation and social acceptance. Speech, accent and pronunciation can be formed by experiences of race, gender, class, disability, nationality, and can enable access or be part of barriers to certain spaces, based on social assumptions and prejudices.

Speaking in a ‘measured’ way can make you appear more ‘reasonable’, ‘professional’ (in some contexts), more ‘amenable or ‘emotionally regulated’; in a medical context as a patient it can make what you say seem more ‘believable’, that you have a ‘rational’ assessment of your symptoms and experiences. In terms of psychiatric diagnoses, one of the criteria of mental health conditions or ‘pathologies’ is ‘dysregulated speech’; it’s contradictory that in order to communicate that you’re in acute mental distress, you have to do so in a way were you are self-composed enough to articulate this through speech. Many people with psychiatric conditions including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder describe how impossible it is to articulate their experiences and symptoms through language, like you’re being asked to express the inexpressible.

In being a pale person of mixed heritage, I’m also interested in how people construct race through external physical markers e.g. skin colour, hair colour, eye colour. The history of genetics and categorisations of external physical characteristics (phenotypes) strongly ties in with histories of racism, white supremacy and eugenics. Some of the methods of analysing difference include Anthropometry, or measuring parts of the body, which was used in scientific racism to categorise and hierarchise groups of people and make assumptions about their ‘intelligence’ and by extension their whole societies as ‘civilised’ or not. Different kinds of calipers are some of the tools used to measure body parts in Anthropometry.

Studio

SAMPLE 2 119MINS / TATAMI SATIN CROSS STITCH

by Helen Stratford

A series of 6 photographs with black borders showing two pairs of pale skinned hands tracing embroidered lines on bright red fabric. One pair of hands is visibly older than the other. The textile contains stitched diagrams, arrows and looping forms in pink and pale blue thread. The images document a tactile encounter with the embroidery, as the raised stitches are explored through touch. — A series of 6 photographs with black borders showing two pairs of pale skinned hands tracing embroidered lines on bright red fabric. One pair of hands is visibly older than the other. The textiles contain stitched diagrams, arrows and looping forms in pink and pale blue thread.

I show my mum my current work-in-progress. She is partially sighted, so the showing becomes a feeling. Tracing the lines of embroidery with our fingers, we talk and laugh about wellness models, illness and autonomy through a tactile and sensory conversation.

In the 1950s my mum worked on garments for Queen Elizabeth II as a dressmaker for a London Fashion house. One of the dresses she worked on is currently on display at the King’s Gallery. This is exactly the sort of exhibition I try to avoid. The exhibition centres garments produced for royal ceremonies and state occasions, histories inseparable from empire and colonisation. Yet, I became emotional when my sister, niece and I recently took my mum to see the dress we’d heard about (repeatedly) all our lives.

The feeling is difficult to untangle. Partly it was seeing my mum encounter a piece of her own history. Partly it was the accumulation of years of stories suddenly materialising in front of us. Partly it was an awareness of all the other hands that remain absent from the story. I found myself wanting to find all the hands that worked on these exquisite outfits: the hundreds of unnamed workers whose labour supported state weddings, coronations and diplomatic visits; work entangled with wealth drawn from extracted lands and colonial systems. Their contributions remain largely invisible while the finished garments become objects of national celebration. At the same time, I was frustrated by the lack of access design. The hand-drawn sketches that accompanied the garments were displayed too high for my mum to see from her wheelchair.

There is no touching in the exhibition, only admiration.

Studio

by Helen Stratford

A large sheet of white paper mounted on a tripod easel stands in a harvested field covered with golden straw. Drawn on the paper is a hand-written grid or chart filled with repeated letters and numbered cells, with column headings including words such as 'always,' 'usually,' 'often,' 'sometimes,' 'rarely' and 'never.' In the middle of the paper is a crescent shape of light. it is a partial solar eclipse projected through a telescope the end of which is in view. The lower right corner of the paper curls forward in the breeze. Behind the chart, mature trees are silhouetted against a clear evening sky. To the right, a bright green tent or windbreak is partially visible, while drawing and workshop materials are scattered on the ground beneath the easel. Warm, low sunlight casts long shadows across the field.

Close up of a detail of a charcoal drawing on white paper of a grid infilled with letters and numbers. The numbers 31,32,33,34 are visible in the frame and the letters AUOSRN, repeatedly. A golden crescent-shaped projection of a partial solar eclipse moves slowly across the view, from top left to bottom right. The video is silent.

A close-up view of a hand held in front of a white projection screen outdoors. Bright sunlight passing through a telescope projects a glowing crescent-shaped image of a partial solar eclipse in the centre of the palm. In the foreground, part of a telescope is visible, aimed at the screen. The lower edge of the image reveals straw-covered ground, suggesting the scene is taking place in a harvested field. Warm evening light illuminates the hand and screen, highlighting the projected crescent shape, creating a fleeting interaction between body, light, and astronomical observation.

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Drawings on skin

by Sophie Hoyle

Drawings on Skin

After many experiments of drawing directly onto skin with surgical markers and other pens which caused some adverse skin reactions, I printed my drawings as a temporary tattoo. The lines morph with the skin stretching and form bubbles underneath the transfer when I sweat (more photos to come).

Image Description:

Two mid-range and one close up photographs of temporary tattoo transfers onto the pale skin of a forearm stretched out vertically; in the first photograph, the forearm is lying on a white table background, in the second photograph on a black fabric background, and the third is a macro close-up of the skin only. They are black line drawings onto a transparent background which shows the micro-relief of the skin underneath. The line drawing is one of the drawings included in the first post in this studio blog, which look like abstract versions of sinews, tendons, and neurons, twisting and winding. It almost looks like it is emerging from underneath the skin where the elbow joint and beginning of the forearm meet, like it has resurfaced and is loosely following the pattern of blue veins on pale skin, until it reaches a couple of inches below the wrist joint where it stops.

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Pulse

by Sophie Hoyle

Pulse

Audio Description:

The soundscape is a constant white noise that sounds almost like rushing water, with small and quick undulations underneath, barely heard. The title ‘pulse’ comes from the quietly pulsating motions in the image and sound, and Pulsatile Tinnitus, a form of Tinnitus where you can hear the internal sounds of blood flow rhythmically beating with the heart.

Image Description:

A two-minute long moving image work with different videos layered over each over, building slowly.

A close-up shot fades in as water flows in from the left-hand side of the screen, swaying a mass of submerged freshwater plants to the right hand side of the screen; and back and forth again, continuously throughout the film. They seem to be attached to a rock or other material off-screen, and sway with the currents and eddies of the water. The gatherings of thin strands on the plants swell and release, and are soft and feathery, moving in multiple directions with the current. Sometimes reddish hues and textures appear underneath the plants, which colours the strands, making them look like coral or like pinky-red flesh. Another layer of imagery is then added to the film, of the surface of water with shadows of reeds in its dappled reflections. Underneath, barely seen is close-up footage of pale skin, lightly stretching and folding. At points the reddish hues, swaying weeds, stretching skin and dappled reflections merge together, forming new shapes and textures. Towards the end of the film it becomes more apparent that the rough, red textures underneath are a close-up of a crusted red scab on skin. (The film-maker doesn’t know exactly which water plant is in the film, but it may be Willow Moss or similar)

About:

I have been thinking about making the film component for my practice-based PhD and felt (internal) pressure to ‘step up’ my film-making in terms of a larger production involving a lot of complex shots; I can enjoy this process at times, but then it can feel unwieldy and insurmountable to get started. But then as Helen mentioned in one of our conversations about building in a Crip Methodology to the research itself, I remembered that why I make mostly (relatively) low budget DIY films is because they’re more accessible for me to make with chronic illness. The daily reality is that I often don’t have necessarily have the capacity to do long film shoots, and the logistics and communication that this involves; to do something smaller-scale and immediate (like filming in my bedroom or the park near where I live) makes working with film feel a lot more possible again.

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Working with Waste (excerpt)

by Sophie Hoyle

A short excerpt of a film that I made but never showed to a wider audience; life events and other projects took priority so it wasn’t finished, even though I think about the themes that were explored in this (transnational networks of waste, medical waste, the chronically ill body and everyday detritus) often.

Studio

by Helen Stratford

washing clothes

washing dishes

washing my mother

Studio

Frictions

by Helen Stratford

Tuesday: my mum and I go for a slow walk – carefully navigating and registering every slight change in surface, every minute change in level, avoiding every raised kerb and seeking solace in the shade. It is a form of attentive and responsive, embodied and situated research. Yet this mode of attention is not voluntary. It is born out of non-negotiable necessity and exposes the frictions of the built environment that often remain invisible to those who move through it more easily.

Long shadows of two people stretch across a sunlit paved path. One is holding the other one's arm. One shadow appears taller and broader, while the other is slimmer and carries a long object resembling a walking stick or cane. They are divided by a raised curb. The low-angled sunlight creates strong contrast between the dark shadows and the bright pavement. — Long shadows of two people stretch across a sunlit paved path. One is holding the other one’s arm. One shadow appears taller and broader, while the other is slimmer and carries a long object resembling a walking stick or cane. They are divided by a dropped curb. The low-angled sunlight creates strong contrast between the dark shadows and the bright pavement.

Studio

STRANGE-ING TIME

by Helen Stratford

A bright blue digital display set against a black background reads ‘Monday Before Dawn’ in capital letters above the time 4:54 a.m. in larger numbers in the centre of the screen. Running along the bottom of the screen the date reads: 17 August 2026. There is a reflected light from a mantlepiece and the illuminated screen emphasizes the stillness and darkness of the pre-dawn hour.

I am back at my mum’s. At first, I think I can’t continue with the residency process in this space: practices of art and care feel in direct tension. But then I start thinking about how conventional Western ideas of neoliberal productive time hold very little meaning here. I think about anti-disciplinary scholar Lisa Bradley’s article ‘Life without Clocks’ in which she tries and fails to ‘strange’ time by living without clocks for 12 days. For Lisa, the failure is not in removing the presence of clocks, rather it is in how the rhythm of time has ‘woven its threads through the fibers of my body long ago.’

Here, caring for my mum, time has not disappeared. It registers in the fading daylight, in ‘morning’ and ‘night’ pills, mealtimes, bin collections and the presence or absence of people passing. But ‘Monday morning’ and the productive week become absurd concepts. I have a vague memory of Friday night, but I’m no longer entirely convinced it exists. Instead, time gathers, circles, drags and folds into repetition, reassurance, waiting and attention. Rather than treating this as an interruption, I lean in.

Studio

‘All Seeing Eye’

by Mariette Moor

A hand reaches through a miniature doorway into a small-scale diorama of a living room, resting on the floor and wearing a blue ring on the third finger. To one side sits a blue armchair, with a wicker dining chair blurred in the foreground. Through a second doorway, a man’s face peers into the model. There is a red and white vase to the right of the doorway, oddly large in relation to the rest of the room. — Pierre Bismuth on the set of *The All-Seeing Eye*, 2008, Pierre Bismuth & Michel Gondry.

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corps à corps

by Sophie Hoyle

Image Descriptions:

Three close-up colour photographs in landscape orientation, zoomed-in to the surface textures of a pale person’s skin.

Close-up of grazed skin, mostly blurred except for an area where the image is in hyper-focus (roughly a strip running horizontally through the image), with red and orange hues. We can see part of the skin is red with blood rushing up just underneath the surface, and the top thin layer of skin is torn where the skin looks like it is starting to flake off. Black thin wiry hairs dart out of the skin surface mostly vertically, but also in other erratic shapes and multiple directions.
Close-up of skin, mostly blurred except for an area where the image is in hyper-focus (a diagonal line from the bottom left up to top centre), with some pink but also cold green and blue hues. The area in focus shows the skin micro-relief of furrows and ridges, which creates a pattern that looks like interlocking triangles. In the blurred part of the image we can see blue veins underneath the skin surface.
Close-up of skin with a callus in the centre. The photo has orange, yellow and pink hues. The skin at the edges of the photo is a paler pink, but towards the central callous it becomes darker orange and yellow. We see grooves in the skin surface all over, but the closer they are to centre the harder and more defined the ridges are. It almost looks like a physical landscape with clearly defined contours.

Studio

ON FAILURE

by Helen Stratford

Last week I experimented with filming myself drawing and redrawing the assessment chart. I tried to film in morning light as a way of bringing together two types of time and a link to ecologies (with a nod to Carolyn Lazard and Jade Montserrat). BUT I keep failing, I am not a film maker and the filming is out of focus, is too dark, doesn’t fit in the frame, stops before the end, also, because I am tired, I get up too late for the sun, my body aches from drawing this way and I have to stop repeatedly. It is incredibly frustrating but then I realise this is the process. This is the ridicularity and failure I am trying to embrace. And the rub against normative aesthetic, even architectural, desires to make it neat and tidy is palpable.

A blurry image of a chart of lines, numbers and letters drawn in black on a white background. Most of the image is in shadow with some patches of sunlight on the right which are white and tinged with yellow. The chart is composed of numbers that run from 1 to 62 and repeated letters AUOSRN. At the top there is some indistinguishable writing that appears to be a legend for the chart.

The image shows a video camera on a tripod pointing at a wall. Taped to the wall with masking tape is a large piece of paper. It has ripped edges and looks as if it was cut in a hurry. The wall behind is papered in woodchip wallpaper and painted with magnolia paint, the kind you find in a domestic bedroom, and the top of the wall has a faded decorative wallpaper border with repeating motifs. The paper contains a hand-drawn chart or grid filled with handwritten text and heavy black lines written in deep black charcoal, making much of the content obscured. Across the top are handwritten notes defining letters, including 'A = always, U = usually,' 'O = often,' 'S = sometimes,' and 'R = rarely.' The camera’s fold-out screen displays a close-up view of a hand drawing on the grid. Black plastic sheets cover furniture or stored items beneath the wall. — The image shows a video camera on a tripod pointing at a wall. Taped to the wall with masking tape is a large piece of paper. It has ripped edges and looks as if it was cut in a hurry. The wall behind is papered in woodchip wallpaper and painted with magnolia paint, the kind you find in a domestic bedroom, and the top of the wall has a faded decorative wallpaper border with repeating motifs. The paper contains a hand-drawn chart or grid filled with handwritten text and heavy black lines written in deep black charcoal, making much of the content obscured. Across the top are handwritten notes defining letters, including ‘A = always, U = usually,’ ‘O = often,’ ‘S = sometimes,’ and ‘R = rarely.’ The camera’s fold-out screen displays a close-up view of a hand drawing on the grid. Black plastic sheets cover furniture or stored items beneath the wall.

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So Much I Want to Say

by Sophie Hoyle

So Much I Want to Say (1983) Mona Hatoum

This moving-image work uses a series of close-up images of the artist with a pair of hands reaching from behind her to cover her mouth, which she is struggling to remove. Hatoum is a Palestinian artist who grew up in Beirut, and was studying in London when the Lebanese civil war broke out and she couldn’t return; this work is a directly addresses the impossibility of speaking about traumatic events, such as displacement. The video uses images from her performance work of the same name, which was shown as part of Slowscan live satellite transmissions between Vienna and Vancouver (Wiencouver IV), where an image is received every eight seconds, and sound was transmitted via telephone.

It addresses similar themes I was exploring in Aphonia, about speech, agency and the struggle to be heard. Re-watching this film in terms of research around c-PTSD, the freeze frames images remind me of memories that can’t be processed and integrated, and that return as flashbacks. The soundtrack is Hatoum continuously repeating the phrase ‘ So Much I Want to Say’, which is said gently but also with desperation and urgency; the insistence reminds me of the relentlessness of c-PTSD flashbacks, and the work explores the struggle between the need to speak, but speech always being obstructed. Given the current political climate in the UK, perhaps it can also resonate with increasing restrictions or censorship of speech, including speaking about Palestine and Lebanon.