Samantha Bews
Samantha Bews is a theatre artist who lives and works on Dja Dja Wurrung Country (central Victoria). Her recent work includes three major live art/installation projects on dementia: The Language My Mother Speaks (At Home Residency, Phee Broadway Theatre 2019); Breaking Bread: A Dementia Awareness Café (Artlands Out and About Program and Dementia Awareness Month 2018); and Letters of Love and Dementia (with Dementia Australia and Goldfields Library Corporation 2017). She is currently working on Beautiful Mothers, a stitch and text project with performance artist Rachel Wenona Guy.
The Language My Mother Speaks theatre installation Samantha Bews with Denise Martin (video art), Tim Preston (lighting design) and Neil Harrington (special effects). Phee Broadway Theatre, Castlemaine 2019
Samantha Bews will be exhibiting her theatre installation The Language My Mother Speaks: The Elements Iteration ii in the Care Exhibition Program at George Paton Gallery, Melbourne, VIC, supported by Regional Arts Victoria, in May 2021. The Language My Mother Speaks (TLMMS 2019) was a theatre installation exploring consciousness in a person with advanced dementia, and sought to express the ongoing connection and ‘aliveness’ of this person within a multi-dimensional, inter-connected reality. In this second iteration of TLMMS, the Bews and her collaborators Denise Martin and Neil Harrison bring their attention to the quiet, ever-changing relationship between the person with dementia and the elements. The installation becomes the poetic expression of the material, metaphoric and psychic resonance of this relationship: a relationship that pertains to all human beings, no matter the ‘level’ of their cerebral function.
The Language My Mother Speaks theatre installation Samantha Bews with Denise Martin (video art), Tim Preston (lighting design) and Neil Harrington (special effects). Phee Broadway Theatre, Castlemaine 2019
The Language My Mother Speaks theatre installation Samantha Bews with Denise Martin (video art), Tim Preston (lighting design) and Neil Harrington (special effects). Phee Broadway Theatre, Castlemaine 2019
The Language My Mother Speaks theatre installation Samantha Bews with Denise Martin (video art), Tim Preston (lighting design) and Neil Harrington (special effects). Phee Broadway Theatre, Castlemaine 2019
The Language My Mother Speaks theatre installation Samantha Bews with Denise Martin (video art), Tim Preston (lighting design) and Neil Harrington (special effects). Phee Broadway Theatre, Castlemaine 2019
The Language My Mother Speaks (foyer). Theatre installation by Samantha Bews with Denise (video art), Tim Preston (lighting design) and Neil Harrington (special effects). Phee Broadway Theatre, Castlemaine 2019.
The Language My Mother Speaks theatre installation Samantha Bews with Denise Martin (video art), Tim Preston (lighting design) and Neil Harrington (special effects). Phee Broadway Theatre, Castlemaine 2019