In a performance with fellow artist Tu Pham, Benson played with narrative structure and characterisation. Both Benson and Pham had experienced a loss of cultural and community identity. And so during a symbolic rebirthing ceremony, they celebrated the importance of growth and rediscovering oneself after trauma. They used movement, singing and spoken word. Performed at Kate Howes Studio the work was adapted to the environmental context, sourcing leaves and twigs from the local park.
Whilst studying at Central Saint Martins, Benson formed a performance partnership with fellow artist Tu Pham. They embarked on a series of performances around the theme of belonging. Coming from different cultural backgrounds and carrying different generational heritage, they found a shared language through movement. Both through Pham’s interest in contact improvisation and singing, and Benson’s background in contemporary dance, they aimed to break down these boundaries of cultural difference. Here the pair performed a chair duet, the chair becoming a tool to mark moments of division, friendship and reconciliation as they fight and then reunite within the space.
For thier second performance, Tu and Benson took on a more public intervention at granary square. Here they improvised to a recorded discussion of what it means to find belonging.
Taking its name from the Serenity Prayer, a prayer often used as part of Alcoholics Anonymous, Benson meditates on the emotional upheaval that comes from family addiction, as well as its interconnections with faith and intimacy. Not simply creating a painted image, but rather through the process of decisive and improvised tasks, she translated memory into something moving and tangible. Painting with a variety of materials from wine, ink, sticks and flowers, the performance explored these themes through bodily movement, tactility and these interactions between the self and the symbol.
Benson worked with LUVA gallery to present a one-night exhibition celebrating the return to the studio post-lockdown, with an emphasis on process. With this in mind, the artists decided to use the night to stage individual performances which demonstrated their varying artistic processes. At the end of the night, all 3 gallery walls were covered. This would inevitably be painted over before the next show, the focus being on the process and not the final outcome.