Circling and Circling (again)

Circling (2019-20) explores the relationship between movement, time and progression within the experience of living with ongoing pain, a state that intrinsically resists notions of fixity, arrival, or end points. The aim was to find out more about the way people with chronic pain find a sense of progression in a situation that does not offer normative models of cure. The work emerged from a fellowship, awarded to dance and moving image artist, Anna Macdonald by Keele University's Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences (2018/19). Circling (2020) was run in collaboration with Professor Ceri Morgan, and brought together Morgan’s use of geopoetics, combining creative walking practices and writing, and Macdonald's work in somatics and screendance. The fellowship involved working for over a year with six participants with a variety of chronic pain conditions. This work led to an exhibition of co-produced screendances. Some of the works bear witness to the way people’s movement is affected by their pain. Others have a more abstract, durational quality designed to generate the effect of chronicity in the viewer. In 2019-20, the Keele Institute for Social Inclusion awarded funding to develop the work further to focus on the relationship between chronicity, pain and hope in collaboration with bioethicist, Professor Anthony Wrigley.

The original moving image exhibition Circling was exhibited at ArtsKeele in 2020 and in 2021 ArtsKeele and the Keele institute of Social Inclusion commissioned a re-imagined version of the work that can be viewed entirely on-line. This artefact work can be found here or at www.circlingartproject.co.uk. If you are viewing on a mobile or handheld device please rotate to landscape for the best experience and watch with the sound on.

• http://www.circlingartproject.co.uk