Health as Individual vs. Health as Social is a two-screen video work that looks at health from two opposed perspectives: health seen as only the concern of an individual versus health understood as related to social conditions. The work consists of two videos, one on a large projection screen and the other on a small television screen inset inside it. Both screens play simultaneously, showing the two very different videos that reflect opposite approaches to dealing with illness in society. The video work that is playing on the smaller internal television screen is a work that reflects on my personal story through the performances of three actors from my film The Common Sense. The actors perform a monologue about how I have a serious health condition, multiple sclerosis, and how I did not tell people about this for many years because it felt like in the societies where I have lived, people are asked not to show vulnerability. In the large video projection, myself and two translators conduct vox pop interviews on the street in Berlin. We talk with people about their social and labour situations during COVID-19. We speak to doctors, people with health conditions and housing activists. The interviews develop from questions focused on how illnesses such as COVID-19 and all types of illness, are impacted by many social factors and societal conditions such as jobs, housing, discrimination, the built environment and social forms of support.

2021

INSTALLATION

Melanie Gilligan, Health as Individual vs Health as Social, 2018, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Max Mayer, Düsseldorf. Image credit: Studio Bowie / HKW.

VIDEOS

HEALTH AS INDIVIDUAL

HEALTH AS SOCIAL

CREDITS

  • Cast
    Stacey Iseman
    Vicki Kim
    Samara Stern

    Crew
    Script: Melanie Gilligan
    Director of Photography: Melanie Gilligan

    Production
    Sound: Paolo di Teodoro
    Editor: Melanie Gilligan
    Post-production Sound: Paolo di Teodoro

  • Directed by Melanie Gilligan

    Director of Photography: Melanie Gilligan

    Production sound recording: Tom Schön

    Turkish Translation:: Emine Arslan

    German translation: Tom Schön, Alexandra Karg. Berenice Kortsik. Kerstin Stakemeier

    Editor: Melanie Gilligan

    Post-production sound: Paolo di Teodoro

    Thank you to all the people that we met on the street in Berlin who were kind enough to give interviews for the film. Thank you to Praxis Kreuzberg, Gecekondu in Kreuzberg and Huseyin representing the Gorillas Workers Collective. Thanks to Anselm Franke, Kerstin Stakemeier and Övül Dormusoglu for their help during the production of the work.