Image above: screenshot from Becky Edmunds’ video work, Homefire.
This morning was the second of our group Reflections meetings this week. Two of the group shared their work for us – Becky Edmunds and Kate McCoy.
First Becky Edmunds’ told us about material for her work which she has made, borrowed, inherited and found. She showed us first her film, Homefire from her Distant Wars project, giving us a taste of how she “borrows” material (in this case a research film from the US Airforce Research Laboratory). Then she told us about material she’s acquired which could become future work. She told the story of a family relative – former model, actress and artist, Shirley Smith. Becky and her husband have inherited Shirley’s archive film footage of herself. We heard the story of this 50s beauty; a model and actress who reinvented herself as a visual artist when her life was changed by illness and physical deterioration, though her preoccupation with her relationship with the camera continued. This fascination resulted in an archive of film material which she shot of herself, intending to make a documentary of her own life and which includes extraordinary footage of her personal interaction with the camera. This rich source of material is now in Becky’s possession – but she wonders, does she have the right to use it in her work?
Next came Becky’s poignant story of a box of diaries she rescued from refuse collectors, in which the personal stories of a man’s loves and life from the 1920s until his recent death from lung cancer are related. Another possible future work? But again Becky questions her right to use this material.
To end her presentation Becky showed us an intensely moving short film, Goodbye Love, which she made about love and loss. The stark simplicity of the story told in only two minutes was the trigger for tears before breakfast for more than one of us.
Then it was Kate’s turn. Kate McCoy is performing a piece of work tomorrow for the first time for a public audience at a venue in Brighton and decided to try out a short section of the performance on us. She normally works in prisons or with groups in the community such as victims of abuse or addiction and her performance employs objects (in this case vegetables) as a device onto which emotions and experiences can be transferred. In this performance, the potato takes on a particular significance as an object of spiritual and emotional, positive and negative energy. I love Kate’s particular humour, her manner and persona (though one of the things I have found very disconcerting about some members of the group is the ability they demonstrate to transform themselves into other people in their performances without any noticeable transition from one to another. Their performance character seems to invisibly take over in front of my eyes as an extension of themselves but saying and doing things I don’t expect them to say and do. This is quite confusing I find.) Anyway, it was a very short time before I was once again shedding tears, but this time tears of laughter. It was interesting to hear from Kate how differently groups respond to her – some experience her performance without seeing any humour at all and with a sense of belief in what they are experiencing, so Kate is used to allowing the performance to evolve in response to the audience and their state of belief, disbelief, or both.
Watch Becky Edmunds videos on Vimeo – https://vimeo.com/user2801323/videos
