The body keeps the score

Performed at Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall for 4 hours a day twice a week throughout the 6 week duration of the exhibition In Whose Eyes? 2018.

Taking it’s name from the book The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk, this was a 4 hour durational performance using somatic dance practices and exploring recovery from the trauma of cancer treatment. The performance itself was also an act of recovery, an aid to gradually becoming stronger and learning to re-inhabit my body after the dissonance and alienation generated by cancer treatment.

The performance took place alongside the video work Inscription and digital photographs Action shots (11mm grade 2 NST cancer left breast, December 2017 - April 2018), a series of photos I took from when I received my diagnosis through to the end of radiotherapy. The video shows my hand tapping on my chest at four different points throughout treatment: the day before surgery, a few days after my lumpectomy and sentinel lymph node biopsy, the last week of radiotherapy, and one month later - the week before the exhibition opened at Beaconsfield. The video is accompanied by the sound of the radiotherapy machine recorded during my treatment.