Between Lens and Limbs: A Healing Offering from Benji Reid’s Black Diaspora in ‘Find Your Eyes’
- Elspeth Chan
- Jun 18
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 1
A work that defies easy categorization, Find Your Eyes sits intriguingly at the intersection of photography, choreography, and theatre.
Benji Reid — a hip-hop dancer, theatre-maker, and now award-winning photographer — brings his unique vision from Manchester to London’s Sadler’s Wells East this month. Self-described as a ‘choreo-photolist’, Reid’s theatrical output expands into what might be considered a form of ethno-photography, biographically capturing the narrative of his life, including his journey with mental health, and the conflicting lived experiences of Black diasporic communities.
The stage, transformed into Reid’s home studio, is populated by three performers; Slate Hemedi, Salomé Pressac, and Zuzanna Kijanowska, who pose and move under his direction, assisted by a team. Real-time big screens, a bottom-lit lightbox, studio lighting and ladders complete the set. Divided into three acts, the performance begins with Nebula, where extreme close-up, monochrome images of the performers’ skin and pores evoke the grainy vastness of interstellar space. The images are abstracted yet never objectified, emphasizing the body as a landscape.
The next chapter, Portrait, shifts to the interplay of light and shadow, alongside the performers’ emotional states. Music and pre-recorded monologues from Reid introduce themes of addiction, depression, suicide, abortion, and the diasporic experience of the Black communities. Reid’s approach to photography offers him a means of processing and transcending depression with freedom, and he notes that people have volunteered to participate, sharing their own mental health journeys. His works capture "what you have gone through, not what you look like" he says, as images on the stage screens blur and intensify, erasing the unique facial features of the Black community and sewing a fabric of collective mental narrative that extends to universal humanity. Playful objects like cables and fishbowls in the last chapter of this Act give way to striking Surrealist Afro-futurist imagery, as everyday items and evocative visuals explore risk and connection, and the hyper-realistic shots blur boundaries of reality and offer a ritualistic sphere for contemplation.
Act Two’s Chrome Wings crescendos to culmination. White powder handled by the shooting assistant cascades over Hemedi’s body, captured in slow motion, creating waterfall veils in the shots. His strong exhalations create a sense of latency — both in the delayed appearance of images on screen, as well as in the meditative space between external body and internal landscape for the performer and audience alike. The following chapters integrate more movement techniques including aerial dance and pole feats, executed with gorgeous strength and grace, earning well-deserved applause. While visually impressive, these sequences occasionally veer into spectacle, some of the shots even resemble commercial sports advertisements.
The final act introduces a palpable sense of empathy and care, though. In the Narrative section, Reid’s movement direction recalls Pina Bausch’s Café Müller: where Bausch’s suited man represents societal constraints, Reid gently guides his performers towards vulnerability — nudges his performers to fall with defencelessness. Such sentiment peaks in a scene inspired by Reid’s mother’s stroke and passing — her liminal fragility is poignantly embodied through Pressac’s entangled limbs and the bed-as-prison imagery. Yet, deeply felt liberation freed from suffering prevails as Pressac is suspended in a radiant yellow dress.
The Epilogue of Find Your Eyes charts Reid’s artistic and personal evolution, celebrating the vivid techniques and imagery shaped by his inner journey. This work transcends the conceptual blending of choreography and photography, enacting it onstage through the creative juxtaposition of a camera jib and dancing pole — objects that performers inhabit, materially merging movement and image-making.
Though some scenes risk visual excess, the ingenuity and generosity of the creative team are undeniable. Find Your Eyes ultimately becomes a collective healing ritual: lived experiences are shared through performance, soulful BSL interpretation, the tendril of incense, and the resonance of singing bowls. The work pays tribute to those navigating on the ‘cloud of invisibility’ (Carrie Mae Weems’s symbolic quote projected on screen) through diaspora and marginalization, inviting audiences to embark on their own ritual of self-discovery and healing. In deepening cultural understanding through artistic practice, Find Your Eyes stands as a powerful example of genre-defying ethno-photography and embodied resilience.
