Sara MacLean

Quantities and Qualities: Embodied Encounters with Genetic Disorder

This research investigates the possibility of communicating human experience from, through and to the body. While investigating the experience of my own genetic disorder I will examine the dominant discourse on the subject and how it might be subverted, shifted or avoided as required in order to grasp this ineffable phenomenon as a patient. Methods of movement observation and embodied filmmaking will be used to explore the clinical environment during the course of my own treatment. If we put aside discussions of probability and risk, cause and effect, how can we characterize genetic disorder? What is the nature of the experience and how does it relate to the body? How can art, and specifically physical practices of film and movement, establish a fruitful
interdisciplinary exchange with medicine on the subject of patient experiences?

 2013