Flush

Lucy Beech‘s film ‚Flush‘ focuses on flows of bodily waste in and out of hum/animal bodies in the making of reproductive science. Drawing on animal studies, history of science and fluid mechanics, Beech evokes a poetics of waste in which artistic production is a means to analyze and disrupt fixed ideas about the body and its boundaries. Blending documentary, reenactment and poetry Flush mediates on early 20th century efforts to use cows to define the human endocrine system. This poetic film blends medical and agricultural jargon that evolved as scientists, eugenicists, zoologists, farmers and sociologists collaborated throughout the 20th century to control reproduction and in turn formalise gendered normative values within human society. Flush developed from a collaborative writing project with historian of science Dr. Tamar Novick during Beech’s fellowship at The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin.