Samantha Bews is a theatre artist who works over many roles including installation artist, writer, actor and poet. In over 30 years of practice, she her primary concern has been the expression of consciousness as a multidimensional and inter-related reality. More recently this has involved working with people living with cognitive impairment including dementia, Lewy Bodies and traumatic brain injury. Her work draws on crip, queer, blak and neurodiverse theories, Christian mysticism and popular culture.
Samantha Bews’ work is rooted in the contemplative mystical Christian tradition, though she considers irreverent snorts to be indispensable. Her work seeks to express something of the poetic resonance contained with the Judeo/Christian tradition, where symbol, ritual and story travel through time, culture and consciousness. Her poems aspire to be ecstatic fabrics, flinging themselves across the heavenly blue and the scouring the floors of the deepest black. Her expectations of her work have never been high.
Samantha Bews is a theatre artist and writer whose work has been supported by Australia Council of the Arts, Arts Victoria, Vic Health, Melbourne City Council, Myer Foundation, Regional Arts Victoria, Artlands, and various local govts and Victoria educational institutions. Her written work has been published by Currency Press, Routledge, Playworks, The Melbourne Anglican, Liquid Amber and Mark Time Books, and is held in the Australian Plays collection. She is currently working on a commission from the University of Tasmania about the experiences of people living with Traumatic Brain Injury.
Samantha Bews has spent most of her life as a voice under a rock. At times her arms and legs splay out at either side, and she takes the form of an immobile crab. Because the rock weighs most heavily on her chest, she breathes in lopsided humphs. Pinned to the ground this way she periodically self-combusts, transforming into a burning pyre. She claims Joan of Arc as a sister. One day her arms and legs will break free and root themselves elsewhere – on the beach as seaweed; on Dja Dja Wurrung country, as a field of horay sunrays. After the final fire her ashes will seep into the earth to become shadow ochre—then used to paint the face of a young child.