Blood on Silk

Work in Progress – A stop motion set developed for the video work, Medicinae Vehementi. 2021, balsa, galvanised sheet metal, paint, resin and light.

The meditative hour-long video work will focus on the emotional landscape of surviving the night, of being deprived of sleep, and of hearing the suffering of others. The action will occur in the liminal space of a darkened hospital corridor where the only bright lights are the vending machines. Through a series of shadowy meetings fairy tales will be told one stranger to another. The real action is off screen. It is somewhere else. It is in the words of the fairy tale.

In the surrounding installation hospital curtains will hang in front of the projection surface/wall. The audience will be able to pull them open or closed. Three memory card game tables cluster to the side. There each player in turn flips over two cards trying to find a match. However, what is a match will not be obvious. In front a spotlight shines on this rotating diorama of the set, drawing the audience in close, to look at less ambiguously violent medicalised scenes made from balsa and painted plastic figurines.

For the audience some may be playing cards and boisterously celebrating wins and losses; others will be examining the diorama, and others will be watching the video and maybe becoming irritated by those who rearrange the curtains and block their view. The process of sharing space in the exhibition is as in a hospital and mirrors the limitations of the patient’s agency.