Elizabeth Fearon

Run
2012
1:21

Run is a performative exploration of psychosis, healing, medicalization, and fear. This video opens with Elizabeth Fearon, the artist, walking down her street wearing a summer dress. She looks over her shoulder several times, as if she is being followed, then begins to run. As we see her run, we realize that her summer dress is now covered by a winter coat. As it is summer, such protection is unnecessary, and can only make her efforts to run more cumbersome and uncomfortable. She arrives at her home and enters with ease. She then ascends the stairs with some effort, as is evidenced on her face. Her face relaxes and her pace slows as she approaches her bedroom. In her bedroom, she sheds her protective coat, metaphorically emerging from her psychosis and fear. She then leaves the room, returning to the safety and sanctuary of her home. However, unbeknownst to her a serpent emerges from her coat. The serpent is simultaneously a symbol of the medical establishment and her fear of a return of psychosis. The serpent is in her house, in her bed, uncontained; and as the last shot suggests, out of sight but present.

 

 

 

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