Hym(en)als is a collaborative gesture against punishing productivity, conveying the bonds of care between young women and a group of rescued elderly horses, but also commemorating the unseen care of the volunteers who dedicate their time to housing and tending to these horses.
The work is a form of social documentary meets experimental video art projecting fragments of a trans-species performance. The title Hym(e)nals plays on the proximity between two words: hymnal and hymen. The former refers to songs of devotion typically performed by communicants in a place of worship, while the hymen describes the thin membrane of tissue that forms over the external vaginal opening during embryogenesis. This dual reference—to places and practices of worship, and the medical terminology for a thin membrane declaring an internal passage—reflects on in-between spaces: the spaces between private and public, the internal and the external, the everyday and the divine, and the permeability and occasional collapse between the two.
Credits:
Tina Stefanou Concept/Direction/Composition
Wil Normyle Cinematographer
Joli Boardman Editor
Jenny Hector Lighting Design
Romanie Harper Costume Design
Alistair McLean Sound Design
Alina Bermingham Colourist
Cem Yildiz Lighting Assistance
Yeliz Selvi Costume Assistance
Holly Clough
Siena Denison
Zahli Jimeno
Tanika Mathews
Cailin Mikecz
Jasmin Sekhon
Emily Shine
Amber Wilson
Performers/Riders
Axel
Buster
Breeze
Delta
Genie
Little Foot
Horses
Sacajawea Equine Specialist
Gulten Timewell Equine Ground Staff
