Waiting for myself to appear (film installation)

Writer McMillan collaborated with Dubmorphology (Gary Stewart and Trevor Mathison), to create a triptych (three screen) film installation in Almshouse 14 at the Museum of the Home.

Inspired by the museum’s restored 18th century almshouse, this monologue weaves together contemporary and historic stories on female identity, independence, migration and gentrification.

Still from *Waiting for myself to appear* featuring Mary Seacole (left), Esther Niles as Alisha Gumbs (centre), and Florence Nightingale (right)

We meet Alisha, a young British Caribbean woman, growing up in a gentrified Hackney. Alisha works at the museum and spends time looking through the archives. She reads of a Black woman from Jamaica who worked as a wet nurse for Grace Belmore Sweeney. Grace grows up and marries the Geffrye almshouse chaplain, but nothing more is documented of the ‘Black nurse’. In her curiosity, Alisha reimagines and embodies the nurse as Mary Anne.

Still from *Waiting for myself to appear* featuring the Royal Africa Company’s coat of arms (left), and Sir Robert Geffrye’s statute (right) at the Museum of the Home (formerly Geffrye Museum)

Both Alisha and Mary Anne live in times of dramatic change for Hackney and the wider world. Through their histories we see parallels emerging across generations.

Still from *Waiting for myself to appear* featuring archive image from Autograph ABP (left), Esther Niles as Mary-Ann (centre), and Esther Niles as the Reverend in Spanish Town, Jamaica (right)

Waiting for myself to appear was originally performed as an immersive performance piece in the restored 18th century almshouse in October 2019.

See review of triptych film installation by Maria López-Goicoechea.