Video #4 ‘m o t h e r’

Camera, edit and performance: Emma Wilson

Text: “Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution” by Adrienne Rich

This week’s video came about through a culmination of several different factors. Firstly, from the outset of this residency I knew I wanted to explore integrating spoken and written text into the format of video. Secondly, I reached a point in my process where, after having spent three weeks acquiring new skills in working with video, I was faced with a question arising: “What do I want to say?” It felt like a shift was taking place, from approaching the making of videos through a more functional lens of seeking the mastery of new skills, to asking myself what do I want to communicate to an audience through my work. I didn’t have any answers in that moment, but a book by Adrienne Rich I was dipping in and out of recently came to mind. When I opened the pages, words began jumping out out me, just as if they were placards from a 1970’s Women’s Rights protest. This was such a potent and significant time, that I personally did not experience but definitely reap the benefits from today, and still face some of the same challenges that people were trying to bring societal awareness too and change back then. I’ve also for a long time had an interest in reflecting on themes of Mothers and Daughters and Motherhood, as you can see from a sample of my reading collection. So I decided to go with this personal curiosity and bring my history of reflection and thought around these themes to experiment with ways of bringing these voices into a screendance format.