Re-assessing Normal

2021, practice-based research project, funded by Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Google searches of ‘what’s normal?’; ‘whats normal?’; ‘What is normal?’ and ‘is it normal...’ return a combined 17,410,000,000 results, from which a social fixation on normal emerges. With so many fearing abnormality -perpetuated by the often-interpreted singular voice of data - this public fixation solidifies the need for a personal, pluralised approach to data. I used an IPA approach, gathering data through focus groups and existing material to understand the body’s relation to ‘normal.’ channeling my findings of conformation and rebellion into practical workshops titled The Brick House of Normal.

The employment of choreography to re-imagine and re-assess normal challenges the potential singularity in the expression and interpretation of data with dance being a pursuit of interpretative, anatomical, temporal, and sentient plurality. Additionally, the use of a marginalised, embodied art form (dance), reflects the plurality of subjectivities that fall through the gaps in data representation and the queerness of introspective rebellion.