Field (2020) film
In this time-based iteration of Field, made in October 2020, the photographs are presented in parallel with performed text adapted from a variety of sources including news articles, national timelines and personal reflection. This 19 minute film is an attempt to expose and encounter moments of connection and dissonance between the national, local and personal narratives of this time. Somewhere between poetry and chronicle, Field captures the atmosphere of the specific historical moment and the heightened performativity of being outdoors. The film has been described as "bittersweet", "cathartic to watch", "an incisive and emotive account", "mesmerisingly sad, weirdly funny, feels like ancient history and future prophecy at the same time".
The Field (2020) film was acquired by the Museum of London in March 2021, alongside 9 photographs from the series.
GRAIN Projects:
"Photographer and performance maker Jemima Yong makes carefully observed and poetic works... [Field is] an intimate typology of 76 black and white photographs exhibited as a performative work."
Jilke Golbach, Curator of Photographs at Museum of London:
"In a daily series of images, Yong follows events on the field while training her eye on the motions, body language and interactions of the people moving into her field of vision, capturing them like tiny figurines or actors in a play.
Shot at a time when the spread of COVID-19 made us all hyper-aware of our own bodies, Yong’s bird’s-eye-view images evoke a sense of performativity and choreography... By emphasising the distance between herself and the outside world in these striking pictures, Yong imbues apparently mundane activities like dog walking or exercising during the lockdown with new layers of meaning."
Credits
This project was made possible thanks to a GRAIN Projects bursary, part of the national programme ‘Covid -19 Responses’, supported by Arts Council England.