The Work We Share: Part 4

Featuring A Song of Ceylon, Laleen Jayamanne (1985) 51 mins, Loss of Heat, Noski Deville (1994) 20 mins, and A Prayer Before Birth, Jacqui Duckworth (1991)

When: Saturday 14th October 2:30pm

Where: Composite, Collingwood Yards

The second programme of The Work We Share program brings together three works which in a variety of ways responds to themes relating to the notion of the body.

A Song of Ceylon, Laleen Jayamanne (1985) 51 mins

This film refers not only to Basil Wright’s classic British documentary “The Song of Ceylon” but also to a name erased from the map of the world, for there is no country officially named Ceylon. Invoking this idea of absence the above film pursues a certain phantasy of the body, a somewhat abstract form of the body in extremis, the body in travail, the body in torsion. The extremity in question is around forms of hysteria. A Song of Ceylon explores the narcissistic body, the masochistic body, the hysterical body and maybe a few other bodies in extremis. This is done by bringing together two different theatrical traditions from two different cultures through the mediation of cinematography.

Loss of Heat, Noski Deville (1994) 20 mins

Loss of Heat is an evocative portrayal of queer love that challenges preconceived notions on the 'reality' of living with the invisible disability of epilepsy. It is a poetic, immersive interpretation exploring the interplay of the emotional and the physical, across boundaries of sexuality, dependence and desire.

A Prayer Before Birth, Jacqui Duckworth (1991) 20 mins

In Jacqui Duckworth’s A Prayer Before Birth, the artist explores her own experiences of being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. In Noski Deville’s magic realist short Loss of Heat, the audience is invited to reflect on notions of queer love and epilepsy through a poetic portrayal of two parallel lesbian couples. The longest work of the programme, A Song of Ceylon, by Laleen Jayamanne, borrowing its title from the 1934 Basil Wright documentary, engages with histories of colonialism and how these interact with questions of gender and the body.