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Residency feedback:
‘I used this residency to feel through and represent the trauma of cancer treatment through movement and photography.
At Curbar Edge, I put on my hospital gown and we started shooting. It was a lot of open flowing movement – I found it really useful to let my body explain the trauma rather than having to use my words. The fabric represents the smothering feeling of the terrible care I received. The vastness of the landscape represents how endless and consuming cancer treatment feels. I tried to represent how out of control I felt with my body, having to hand it over to the surgeons and nurses and hope for the best.
We set up the room at LEVEL Centre to represent the wounds of surgery. During my second thyroid surgery my throat was damaged and I didn’t receive proper care or treatment to heal it. It took a month for my voice to start to recover – I didn’t know if it would ever heal and was scared it could have been the end of my music career through medical negligence. This shoot day was particularly difficult to enact and process, trauma and health-wise due to an EDS flare.
At Lumsdale Waterfall we took some pictures in my performance outfit, showing myself on the other side of my treatment. This shoot reinforced the power that I have as an artist, a mover and a human being, through all the inhumane treatment I’ve received during my treatment over the past year. This was a very healing way to end the week.
The residency was a really meaningful and significant way for me to sort through my feelings and create art to represent my treatment. I’m going to continue to process these experiences through my art and editing of this content. This could be a great starting point for my next EP and/or part of a short documentary to go alongside the photos.’
Elle Chante
Elle is a disabled musical self expressionist, artist, model and photographer based in the West Midlands. Fuelled by her experiences, she threads her reality of illness, complex mental health and disability into her work. Elle lives with EDS, CPTSD and thyroid cancer. She believes in sharing experiences through community.
Elle is co-founder of Radical Body Arts, and organisation supporting disabled artists, and an Associate Artist of LEVEL Centre.
During her residency Elle aims to feel through and represent the trauma of cancer treatment through movement and photography. Together with her team, she will spend time out filming and creating in Derbyshire and in our main space, developing her next piece of work.