Touching Visions
Commissions for Thackray Medical Museum. New films by Nick Jordan and Ewan Jones Morris
Handy by Ewan Jones Morris and The Language of Hands by Nick Jordan, commissioned by Thackray Museum of Medicine, Leeds, are now on permanent display, following a comprehensive refurbishment of the Museum’s galleries.
Animate worked with Sue Ball at MAAP, Core, and the team at the Museum to devise a brief and open call, and worked with the artists, to deliver the project.
The Thackray Museum is housed in former Leeds Union Workhouse building, in the grounds of St James’s University Hospital, Europe’s largest teaching hospital, and where the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery team undertakes pioneering work in hand transplants. It is the only UK medical facility to offer hand transplants within a comprehensive patient support programme including bespoke surgery with long-term psychological, emotional and nursing care of the patient and their family and to the donor family.
Nick’s film, The Language of Hands, explores the complex process of hand transplants, and features personal reflections from Christopher King, the UK’s first double hand transplant patient, capturing the impact of this life-changing operation, and the significance of hands in conveying human emotion, expression and mechanical function.
Ewan’s animated film Handy is a dizzying tour-de-force that makes use of a range of technique, including drawing, photography, digital collage, and time-lapse Lego, to create a celebratory assembly of the diversity, beauty and versatility of our hands, and how we use them..to catch, count, wave, build, touch and connect.
Nick Jordan is a visual artist and experimental filmmaker based in Manchester. Filmed with an intuitive approach, he makes hybrid documentaries that explore the interconnections between cultural, social and natural ecologies. His work has shown widely at international exhibitions and film festivals.
Ewan Jones Morris’ multi multidisciplinary approach to filmmaking combines live action, collage, stop motion and CG to transform the ordinary and explore imagined inner worlds. His works have secured at least 12 Vimeo Staff Picks to date. He’s regularly collaborates with composer Anna Meredith and his film collaborations with artist Bedwyr Williams have been exhibited at the Barbican, Glasgow International Arts Festival and Vienna Biennale.
Sue Ball is founder and director of MAAP (Media and Arts Partnership), a Leeds based a public art consultancy initiating and project managing large scale projects within the context of city regeneration.
The Thackray Museum of Medicine’s A Healthy Future project is supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Wellcome Trust, Thackray Medical Research Trust, Arts Council England, Garfield Weston Foundation, Wolfson Foundation, Foyle Foundation and others.
Extract: The Language of Hands (Nick Jordan, 11 mins 35 secs, 2021)
Looped extracts: Handy (Ewan Jones Morris, 3 mins 45 secs loop, 2021)
To see the full works, head to Thackray Museum of Medicine.
