MESSY BUSINESS - Trailer
This is a trailer for a 30 minute film comissioned by People United and made in 2018/19 in collaboration with Sarah Cole with women who attend Joining Hearts, Joining Hands, a support group for survivors of domestic violence and/or sexual abuse. Journeying through six passages of time, Messy Business was made with women who have experienced domestic violence and/or sexual abuse. Playful, insistent, dark yet uplifting, Messy Business is an elegy to their wisdom, resilience and pain, giving a voice to those who kept quiet but now want to shout off the rooftops.
Made with Sarah Cole, as social arts practitioners, our aim in making this work was to find a form through which to communicate some of the experiences, regrets and aspirations of these women. The creative process involved exploring images, objects, words and mechanisms through which to talk about lived experience. Consisting of six interconnected segments, the shorter videos can also be used individually, as provocations, activist tools to help people speak about violence in their own lives.