Simon Says/Dadda is a collaborative three-screen film exploring father/daughter relationships together with Black and Asian women and non-binary individuals from four host cities across the UK (Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle and London). The ambitious largescale film project was developed during a Metal residency and highlights the deep impact that structural inequalities have within wider society. 

The screening will take place at FACT,  Liverpool on Wednesday 7 June at 7pm. This is a pay what you can screening (suggested donation £3). Book your ticket

Through a series of Gatherings hosted by Beverley at four UK socially engaged arts spaces (Metal, Liverpool, Grand Union, Birmingham, Lux, London and Newbridge, Newcastle), Beverley guided women and non-binary individuals through a therapeutic process, supported by a mental health practitioner, to explore their own family relationships and experiences of patriarchy. The workshops involved looking at film, listening to music, drawing, writing poetry and cooking together. 

The three screens feature footage shot by Beverley supported by family, actors and a film crew, and a series of audio testimonies gifted by the project participants.

Trigger warnings: Family relationships, grief, family planning, abuse. 

About Beverley

Beverley Bennett is an artist-filmmaker whose work revolves around the possibilities of drawing, performance and collaboration. Her practice connects multiple ways of making. The first of these is a concern with the importance of ‘gatherings’ to denote a methodology that differs from the more hierarchical model of the workshop; one person leading and sharing information with participants taking part in the activities. Instead ‘gatherings’ are cyclical, whereby everyone learns from each other and often formulate in myriad ways, from reading together to gathering at a party. This has created a ‘tapestry of voices’, an interweaving of communalities and differences that provide a broader view, an important part of amplifying intergenerational relationships.

The second is an investigation of the idea of The Archive (often beginning projects by creating / adding to her own extensive personal archives of interviews, using them for preliminary research and experimentation) and the third is collaboration. This is frequently through socially political work with other creatives, fine artists, community members, young children and their families. Her practice provides spaces for participants to become collaborators and provides a point of focus from where to unpick ideas around what constitutes an art practice and for whom art is generated. 

Bennett’s work has been shown nationally and internationally; venues include the British Film Institute (BFI), London (2023); Birmingham 2022 Festival (2022); CinemaAfrica Film Festival, Stockholm (2018); Encounters Short Film Festival, Bristol (2017); Wysing Art Centre, Cambridgeshire (2017); Spike Island, Bristol (2017); New Art Exchange, Nottingham (2016); National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston (2016); Bluecoat, Liverpool (2010). 

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