I use experimental, participatory and collaborative techniques, challenging conventions around traditional ethnographic film. This selection reflects work made in a range of styles and for varied scholarly and public audiences
If Museum Walls Could Speak (2022)
Using speculative imaginative play, this short presents the words of women who work in UK museums on institutional walls, in “in- between” spaces. A mediation on how gendered and racialised bodies are defined, to different degrees, as “space invaders” who do not match the expected somatic norm of ‘museum leader’
Motion.Stop. (2021)
A video poem about the connecting threads that form through transnational collaboration, as I exchanged postcards with colleagues against the backdrop of a global pandemic, associated funding cuts, and my own battle with covid-related illness. Originally published, with accompanying essay, in entanglements (4)2: 4-9
At Home in the Village? (2018)
How can representations of community spaces as ‘safe’ and ‘welcoming’ obscure complex realities of exclusion? An experimental short explores one queer experience of seeking asylum and navigating spaces and ambivalences in a US “gaybourhood”. Originally published, with accompanying essay, in Refugee Hosts
Documentary short: Shut Down Yarl’s Wood (2015)
Short documentary about the ongoing protests to shut down Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in England, organised by people held in detention and campaign groups including Women Asylum Seekers Together and Sisters Uncut. Originally published, with accompanying text, in Red Pepper magazine
Why Does This Happen? (2014)
A ‘mash-up’ style experiment in rapid editing and repurposed footage presents a critical response to US media coverage of the killing of 17 Afghan civilians by a US soldier on March 10, 2012, and American pop culture writ large. Winner: Best Super Short Film, Futures of Visual Anthropology Conference, Temple University, 2014.
Homoelectric: What Pleasures Lie Within (2011)
Experimental, immersive narrative short capturing the sensory and affective experience of HomoElectric, Manchester’s iconic club night for ‘homos, heteros, lesbos and don’t knows’
A Place to be Myself (2011)
Bringing lesbian-identified asylum seekers together to share and create stories of experience, this film emerged following six theatre/ art/ music and storytelling workshops. Made in collaboration with the participants of We Need More Than This To Live, run by Queer Up North festival
Still Life (2010)
Made in collaboration with members of Women Asylum Seekers Together (WAST), this half-hour documentary reveals how women seeking asylum in the UK get by, build solidarity and develop critical organising strategies in response to punitive immigration policies
Manchester (2010)
A visual adventure through the night of Manchester, guided by the poem written and performed by Dominic Berry. Made for the Beautiful North BBC film competition
Other films
Occupy the Vote (2012) D.C. residents pay taxes to the government but do no have the right to decide how that money is spent. Representatives from other states decide for them. 600,000 people are disenfranchised. Protesters say: enough is enough.
Coffee (2011) A story in sixty seconds and an experiment in noir style and lighting
Shared Histories (2011) Trailer for a 20 minute film documenting the Trans Resource and Empowerment Centre’s “Shared Histories” project, designed to explore the perspectives and histories of LGB+T people living in the Northwest of England
Memory, Movement and Manchester United (2009) An exploration of football fandom and the affective process experienced by supporters traveling to watch their team play, explored through soundscape and participants’ contributed photographs, taken on their journeys to the match
Welcome to your Union! (2009) A lighthearted video made for Manchester University Student’s Union, shown to new students in September 2009 and broadcast on screens across campus
Siobhán McGuirk 