Affirmation #6

Overview

This short poem film in British Sign Language is a collaboration between Lisa Fannen (Poet), Alison Smith (BSL Poet/Performer) and Monika Smekot (Filmmaker). It features two poems Affirmation #6 and Ambulance; the first and last poems of a collection ‘Faultline’, speaking to climate change in the context of systemic injustice and violence, also orienting to possibility and transformation. Cultivating creative cooperation, is in some ways akin to forging coalitions. The film is an exploration of what it is to work together with English and BSL, juxtaposing across artforms; poetry, dance, movement, sign language and film. Doing so in order to speak to, respond to, and be part of swelling movements for the transformation of historical legacies, and current machinations of structural oppression and damage.