C2 Images
![]()
![]()
![]()
(2)On Withdrawal
︎ Prev Index︎ Next ︎
“Who are you. Who are you. Who are you. Stop, language is crawling all over me. Sometimes if you stay still long enough you can make it go.” Emily Berry, 2017
Part parody, part cathartic ritual, part fever dream. On Withdrawal uses filmic narrative and performance. In this performance film I suggest three methods of withdrawal. Three ways to tap out of and at once disrupt exploitative and precarious working conditions; gendered microaggressions that so often see female identifying people named as difficult, demanding or stress-heads (Ahmed, 2017); and practical, hands on methods for cathartic release from the exhaustion, chronic stress, and precarity that comes from living entangled and harmed / trapped by the values, politics and economics of late capitalism (Fisher, 2009).
This film is an ongoing work in progress. At the time of writing, July 2026, I’m in the process of re-writing, re-staging and re-performing the work.
On Withdrawal has been exhibited as part of the Consumed exhibition at ArtHouse Jersey (2025), and was recently selected to be screened at The Working Class British Art Network’s conference ‘Who does not envy with us is against us: A conference on working-classness as method in creative practice’.
References
Ahmed, S. (2017) Living a feminist life. Durham: Duke University Press.
Berlant, L. G. (2011) Cruel optimism. Durham, N.C: Duke University Press.
Crenshaw, K. W. (2011) ‘Demarginalising the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Anti-discrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Anti-racist Politics 1’, in Maria Teresa Herrera Vivar et al. (eds.) Framing Intersectionality. 1st edition [Online]. Routledge. pp. 25–42.
Fisher, M. (2009) Capitalist realism : is there no alternative? Winchester: O Books.
︎ Prev Index︎ Next ︎