Refusal as a Creative Force: Practices of Audio-Visual Obscuration in Weathering Storms, Sketching Monasteries (2021)
Author: Leonie Gschwendtberger
Format: Video
Duration: 14′ 18″
Published: June 2025
Embedded Files
Research Statement
Research Statement
Research Questions
Research Questions
Weathering Storms, Sketching Monasteries (2022) is a 14-minute-long experimental documentary film about feminist transformations in the religious tradition of Theravada Buddhism. The film focuses on the English Buddhist nun Venerable Canda who (at the time of filming) aimed to establish the first Buddhist monastery for women in the UK, and on two nuns in Germany who have managed to create a small dwelling. It also engages with archival footage of nuns in Sri Lanka and Thailand and includes ancient Buddhist poetry by women from as early as the 6th century B.C. The film evokes the struggle against oppression, where Buddhist women from various cultural backgrounds have fought against the patriarchal structures of Buddhist institutions in the last 40 years.
In the making of this film, I experimented with deliberately blocking a view and intelligibility of women’s bodies and personal narratives by way of aesthetic elements such as darkness, silences, low definition, superimposition, and mis-matched subtitles. Inspired by the works of filmmaker and cultural theorist Trinh T. Minh-ha, I conceptualise this documentary practice as a radical form of resistance towards not only objectification but also the prevalent impulse in much documentary work to ‘humanise’ marginalised individuals – an overtly progressive notion, which nevertheless may reinforce their/our status as ‘Others’. Pooja Rangan has written extensively about the humanitarian impulse in documentary and its problematic intention to ‘give a voice to the voiceless,’ which is most often aligned with conventions of filmmaking which reproduce restrictive notions of what it means to be a human and how we can recognise humanity in another (Rangan 2017).
My practice research highlights the film medium’s potential to strategically challenge any expectation of a performed humanity – to withhold voices and personal information, obscure faces and challenge intelligibility – with potentially ethical effects. I propose that within this space of denied meaning and the strategic refusal to give an insight into the documentary subjects’ lives, the spectator is invited to reflect critically on the documentary medium’s regulatory mechanisms of ‘recognition’. By this I mean visual and sonic conventions, which set out to ‘humanise’ women (due to their position as culturally displaced, suffering and/or marginalised) and to render them recognisable to a Western audience. Such conventions usually revolve around showing the ‘other’s’ facial expressions, rendering their voices/languages understandable (by way of, for example subtitling or dubbing) and giving an insight into their lives to prove their humanity: the fact that, no matter how different ‘they’ may be, ‘they’ are humans and have autonomy and subjectivity ‘just like us’. I refer to a practice that challenges this subtle form of othering as ‘recessive resistance’ (recedere: to withdraw, move backwards) because this resistant practice is constituted by a sense that images, sounds, and meaning recede from the spectator into a pre-defined state of ‘non-sense’. This state is pre-defined in the way that it is not yet structured and ordered by conventions of representation that are usually part of performing ‘humanity’, leaving the spectator momentarily unable to make sense of what they are seeing and/or hearing. In the making of my film, I asked: what happens when markers of humanity such as the human face and voice become obscured, distorted, and less easily legible? What kind of spectatorial experience does this aesthetic invite? Is the result an absolute opacity and inaccessibility of the women portrayed?
Context / Significance
Context / Significance
My conceptualisation and exploration of recessive resistance in this film has particular significance in the contexts of feminist and decolonising documentary theory and practice. Feminist and decolonising film theorists and documentary scholars such as Trinh T. Minh-ha (1991), Fatimah Tobing Rony (1996), Rey Chow (1991), Lilie Chouliaraki (2006) and others have long criticised the documentary medium’s entanglement with colonial history and the objectifying and sexist portrayals produced as part of ethnographic projects. Recessive resistance advances the field’s critical perspectives on visuality by not only considering ways in which a critical feminist documentary practice can challenge the objectification of (‘Third World’, suffering, and/or religiously marginalised) women, but also how it can openly consider the complexity and potential problems of progressive attempts to reveal suffering, ‘look back’ (return the gaze) at those in power and ‘give a voice’ to those in need. While an approach that prioritises the subjects’ ability to return the gaze and look back at the camera can certainly be productive in challenging objectification – signalling intersubjectivity and agency – recessive resistance acknowledges the subtle limitations placed upon the subject when they are asked to prove/perform their humanity in this way. My film and conceptualisation of recessive resistance are part of my doctoral research project, which focuses predominantly on the documentary work of Trinh T. Minh-ha. After finishing my PhD, I aim to define this practice further by analysing other filmmakers’ works through the lens of recessive resistance, as well as creating further works myself.
Methods
Methods
The practice of recessive resistance is primarily influenced by the work of Trinh T. Minh, but also by other feminist, queer, and decolonising practitioners and theorists whose praxis makes productive use of the refusal to inform about oneself and others. Recessive resistance is fundamentally driven by such a sense of refusal. In this way it resonates with social practices such as labour and hunger strikes, and different forms of non-violent protest such as silent and sitting protests, during which the absence of expected action and the refusal to continue to function ‘as normal’ are visibly marked. Refusal is also a prevalent force in other contexts of social activism. Queer theorists have written about the ‘the ethics of opting out,’ the potential to actively challenge dominant notions of the ‘good life,’ productivity, and becoming, thereby highlighting an anti-capitalist mode of being. Most significant for my research, however, are the ways in which practices of refusal and withholding have been explored in feminist and decolonising film contexts, particularly with regard to a critique of visuality and the intention to complicate the portrayal of women’s bodies in distress, and women’s narratives of cultural/religious marginalisation, colonisation and diasporic displacement. In both contexts (social activist and filmic), refusal disrupts a capitalist mode of living and perceiving, instigating a recessive movement into non-action and unintelligibility that, as I argue, nevertheless has a productive dimension.
To this end, Weathering Storms, Sketching Monasteries explores various forms of audio-visual obscuration of the nuns’ bodies and narratives with the intention to challenge a humanitarian ethic. This includes the use of darkness, black screens, and silence, as well as projecting images of archival footage on to a wall and partially obscuring these with my own body as a way of challenging visuality and thereby encouraging a reflection on dominant portrayals of religious women (specifically the depiction of foreign spiritual practices as spectacle). Most importantly, my aim was to produce forms of obscuration that invite a receptive look from the audience as well as a sense of proximity to the women portrayed which does not depend on seeing their faces or understanding their words clearly. The restrictions that I faced due to Covid-19 regulations fundamentally contributed to this practice as I was not allowed to enter the monastery in Germany or conduct in person interviews, leading to an aesthetic of distance and reduced acoustic clarity.
There are three central forms of such audio-visual obscuration I explore in the film:
I filmed my computer screen while playing a recording of the Zoom interviews I conducted with the Buddhist nuns Venerable Canda, Ayya Sucinta and Thubten Choedroen, thereby creating a reflection of myself and the camera lens on the screen that is superimposed onto the images of the nuns. The effect of this is that the women’s faces become less legible while the observer (me) becomes visually pronounced in their position as listening and viewing the other. This potentially reminds the spectator of their own positionality.
The second main form of obscuration is achieved by filming the monastery in Germany from outside through the windowpanes, creating another variation on the theme of simultaneous obscuration and reflection, a refusal to grant visual access that also generates a literal and potentially metaphorical reflection on practices of representation.
The third form of visual obscuration I explored was to project film footage (from two documentaries about Buddhist nuns) on to a wall in my apartment and blocking it with my own body. I will briefly expand on the effects of this in more detail:
I found that the method of obscuration, in which I use my own body, not only challenges a clear depiction of the face as a marker of humanity, autonomy and subjectivity, but also creates a rich visual encounter between the portrayed women and myself as a spectator. For example, there is a sequence half-way through the film where I can be seen standing with my back towards the camera and a projector, looking at as well as partially obscuring the projected images. This sequence shows an interview from Wiriya Sati’s film The Buddha’s Forgotten Nuns (2016) with Bhikkhuni Dhammananda in which the nun explains that bhikkhuni ordination was initiated by the historical Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) himself and is an integral part of Buddhist tradition. At the beginning of the sequence, I stand directly in front of the projection, blocking a direct view of Bhikkhuni Dhammananda’s face; a slightly distorted, blurred projection of her face can be seen on the white fabric of my t-shirt. My body casts a shadow on to the image, which stands ‘between’ myself and the image of Bhikkhuni Dhammananda, drawing attention to the activity of ‘looking’ at the other and the way in which we as viewers normally remain invisible to ourselves whilst scrutinising the other. As Bhikkhuni Dhammananda speaks, I slightly move over to the right side of the frame to reveal parts of her face. In the moment when she can be seen more fully, there is a sudden cut (in the original footage) to a large group of Thai Theravada Buddhist monks on alms round. When the film cuts back to Bhikkhuni Dhammananda, her face is shown in close-up. Because of my position within the frame, her face can be seen almost in its entirety. As she is looking towards the left, it appears as if she is directly addressing me as if in conversation. This creates the sense that I am not only looking at her but also listening. Throughout the film, the self-reflexive sequences that show me within the frame are to express both a form of visual obscuration – producing opaque images – and reflect a sense of receptivity: they show a body being present, viewing, listening, and receiving. Further methods of obscuration are explored throughout the film with regard to translation processes, the use of text on screen, and interview.
Outcomes
Outcomes
One of the major outcomes of this filmmaking research is an understanding of how nuanced the relationship between audiovisual obscuration and meaning production is and under what circumstances opacity seems to become particularly effective in the sense that it invites a critical reflection on problematic representational practices while also encouraging receptivity and a sense of close-ness to the women. The main contribution my practice research offers to the field of intercultural and feminist film study is that it presents an alternative to a humanitarian ethic. It fundamentally contributes to critical feminist perspectives on visibility, high definition and the notion of ‘giving voice’ to disenfranchised individuals. Rather than having a predominantly expressive function – for example, expressing a diasporic, fragmented subjectivity as described by Laura U. Marks (2000), and Ella Shohat and Robert Stam (2014) – opacity here becomes a strategic performance of refusal: the refusal to show oneself and others. Humanity is thereby affirmed in the very inaccessibility of the subjects and in the reflective receptivity this encourages in the viewer.
Impact
Impact
I have not yet disseminated the work. However, I plan to produce a slightly shorter cut for Venerable Canda to post on the Anukampa Bhikkhuni Project’s Facebook page and website and/or to share a link in her monthly newsletter. The film may give those following Venerable Canda’s platforms an insight into the issue of discrimination against nuns within Theravada Buddhism while marking a resistance towards a normalising gaze that seeks to appropriate the alterity of the nuns’ lives.
Response to Feedback on the Film
Response to Feedback on the Film
The reviewer’s comments highlight that a stronger sense of immersion into the lived experiences of the nuns in my film – while still challenging dominant forms of representation – would allow the spectator to experience a deeper connection to them. In my view, recessive resistance directly challenges this approach by exploring ways in which opacity may invite the spectator to apprehend humanity differently – precisely by refusing to provide access to the subjects’ inner lives and by gesturing beyond visual and sonic markers of interiority and subjectivity, such as the face and the voice. The reviewer points out that they find these techniques effective in part; the superimposition of faces during interview sequences, for example, creates a shared, non-hierarchical space between the artist (and by extension, the viewer) and the nuns, while resisting conventional representations of the human face. However, they note that some of these techniques feel somewhat disembodied, proposing that they could be developed further to allow for a “more direct immersion into the subjects’ worlds.” Similarly, they suggest that following the nuns’ perspectives, handing the camera to them, and using sounds of the monastery would invite a more immersive experience of the film. While I would have been reluctant to experiment with participatory filmmaking techniques due to their link to a humanitarian ethic, these comments are very useful in helping me reflect on the ways in which a sense of connection to the subjects becomes possible – both by balancing obscuration with more conventional forms of representation and by way of opacity itself.
The reviewer notes that the film’s strongest element lies in the prevalence of the women’s voices, which guide the audience through the maze of visual obscuration. My own perspective on this element of the film is much more ambivalent. I thought it was necessary to include sequences of the women’s voices to offer some contextual information, allowing for moments of obscuration to become meaningful and to stand out. However, there was also a part of me that was trying to convince the spectator, not just of a particular message about the plight of Buddhist nuns, but also of their humanity. In retrospect, it is striking how prevalent the voice-overs are in my film, despite my attempts to render them obscure. I actively obscured some of the women’s words, tried to render them less easily comprehensible by introducing mismatched subtitles (thereby leaving the spectator unaided with the “grain” of German accents), and embraced the technological shortcomings of the sound in the German nuns’ interview due to a storm. However, in retrospect, I was certainly tempted to demonstrate the women’s status as subjects rather than objects – and to use their voices as indexes of interiority – by including these lengthy voice-over sequences.
I agree with the reviewer that the voices anchor the spectator and provide a sense of guidance. However, rather than reverting to a humanist approach, further experimentation with silences and disruptions of voice might have created a more immersive, sensual encounter with the subjects. The reviewer’s comments made me aware that the film does not fully succeed in creating a sense of deep proximity to the women portrayed through the techniques of obscuration I chose. While providing an insight into the nuns’ worlds was not my aim in making the film (but rather to experiment with the effects of refusing to offer such access), I did hope to foster a sense of emotional proximity to them through this visible refusal. While I am not able to make significant changes to the current version of the film, I plan to further explore the power of refusal and its ethical and creative possibilities in inviting an emotional connection to documentary subjects in future projects.
References
References
Chouliaraki, L. (2006) The Spectatorship of Suffering. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications.
Chow, R. (1991) ‘Violence in the Other Country: China as Crisis, Spectacle, and Woman’. In: Mohanty, C. T., Russo, A. and Torres, L., eds, Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Marks, L. U. (2000) The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses. Durham: Duke University Press.
Rangan, P. (2017) Immediations: The Humanitarian Impulse in Documentary. Durham: Duke University Press.
Rony, F. T. (1996) The Third Eye: Race, Cinema, and Ethnographic Spectacle. Durham: Duke University Press.
Ruti, M. (2017) The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory’s Defiant Subjects. New York: Columbia University Press.
Shohat, E. and Stam, R. (2014), eds, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. New York: Routledge.
Trinh, T. M. (1991) When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender and Cultural Politics. New York: Routledge.
Filmography
The Buddha’s Forgotten Nuns (Wiriya Sati, 2016, Australia).
Peer Reviews
Peer Reviews
All reviews refer to the original research statement which has been edited in response to what follows
Review 1: Accept submission subject to minor revisions of written statement (these should be outlined in detail in the review).
This submission provides valuable insight into the PaR process and the research context behind the film Weathering Storms, Sketching Monasteries. In the spirit of PaR, the film has clear creative value in its own right, and gives a tacit sense of new knowledge even without the unambiguous interpretation of the audio-visual structure provided in the statement. The statement nevertheless testifies to the value of the grounding of practice in the processes of research: having theoretical concepts inform and inspire the methods of practice, and using practice to answer research questions which simultaneously address problems of audio-visual communication and expression in film, but also address important socio-cultural, ethical, or philosophical questions. This submission does all of this well, while giving a clear and cogent understanding of both the context and the methods behind the project. The concept of ‘recessive resistance’ is particularly interesting, in the way it challenges expectations of a performed humanity, as the author states, and brings focus instead to the productive dimension of non-action and unintelligibility, thereby affirming humanity through the reflective, non-objectifying participation of the viewer. The justification of this concept in relation to the research context, methods and the practical outcomes represents contribution to knowledge, and has value for film practice, practice-as-research, and general critical understanding of film.
There are nevertheless a few questions that would be worth addressing through expansion or clarification, or simply by considering them for the sake of academic debate, without making any changes to the statement. It is not clear why the state of ‘non-sense’, to which meaning recedes through recessive resistance, is pre-defined. A clearer explanation of this would be valuable in the statement. The author also mentions the relevant inspiration in the films of Trinh T. Minh-ha, which brings to mind the function of silence in her films. However, the author does not ever consider or explore the function or potential of sound (or its absence) for recessive resistance. Although the author implies that the focus here is not the expressive but rather the ethical function of film, the theoretical context surrounding Shklovsky’s defamiliarization nevertheless bears clear relevance to both the methods and the intended effects of this PaR, in terms of removing the habitual knowledge of what is seen. This is connoted in Kracauer’s evocative description of the potential for ‘suggestive indeterminacy’ in the film image, which delimits through the frame without creating any meaningful definitions in itself. Finally, without wishing to add to the ‘vicious circle of problematisation’ of the film image, I do have questions about the considerations behind some of the techniques of de-objectification, such as filming through windows or computer screens, and choosing, at times, to obstruct participants’ faces. On the former, it can be argued that by filming through the marked surface of a window or screen, the perceived human subject is homogenised and dissolved into the objective aesthetic unity of the image (perhaps, though, that is in line with the intended method here). On the latter, it can be argued that it is precisely the face where the object of the body becomes the visible manifestation of the autonomous human subject, through the singular complexity and ineffability of human expression, but also through the ability to return the gaze – or rather, the ability to transform the objectifying gaze into an inter-subjective encounter based on mutual agency and equality.
Review 2: Accept submission subject to minor revisions of written statement (these should be outlined in detail in the review).
Refusal as a Creative Force: Practices of Audio-Visual Obscuration explores innovative methods of decolonizing documentary representation, with the filmmaker drawing on theorists like Trinh T. Minh-ha to challenge objectification and the traditional humanitarian impulse to "give voice to the voiceless." The film uses three main techniques—obscuration, superimpositions, and projection—to subvert conventional documentary practices.
The film’s strongest element lies in its focus on voice. The narratives of the nuns anchor the audience, guiding us through their lived experiences. In scenes where the visuals are obscured, the use of voice creates an intimate connection with the subjects. Even through distortions and reflections, the nuns' voices draw us in, making the experience feel sensory and tactile.
The opening sequence is compelling, beginning in darkness, with the artist’s voice attempting to feel around the edges of seeing and making sense of reality. This gradual revelation sets the stage for the film’s exploration of visibility and recognition, creating a sense of anticipation and engagement—a deliberate entry into the unknown, mirroring the film’s thematic tension.
The first technique, filming interviews through the computer screen, creates an effective dialogue between the filmmaker and the nuns, resisting hierarchical representation. The superimposition of faces creates a shared space, where neither the artist nor the nuns are privileged. However, the laptop shots feel somewhat disembodied, acting as an all-encompassing container that can distance the viewer from the narratives. While these techniques challenge objectification, they also risk making the narratives abstract. These techniques could evolve to allow for more direct immersion into the subjects' worlds.
The second method—filming through windowpanes—creates a metaphorical reflection on representation, but the wide-angle shots that follow detract from the immersive experience. The intimacy of the nuns’ lived experiences could be further amplified by bringing the camera closer to their daily lives. While COVID-19 restrictions were a constraint, giving the camera more freedom to follow their perspective or even handing it to the nuns could deepen the connection to their lives. The use of sound, like footsteps on grass or the sounds of the monastery, could further enhance this sensory experience.
The projection technique, in which the filmmaker’s back blocks the images of the nuns, is a powerful critique of representation. It allows the images of the nuns to be broken up and recombined, with the filmmaker’s body integrated into the frame. This visual obfuscation becomes a highly effective form of decentering, challenging hierarchical representations. The nuns are no longer solely visible subjects but part of a shared space. This fractured approach is compelling but could be pushed further. By coming closer to the artist's body and exploring obfuscation in a more abstract and sensory way, the filmmaker could deepen the texture of the nuns' voices on screen. The artist’s movements could add a new dimension to the soundscapes of the nuns’ lives, allowing their voices to resonate in a way that feels more immersive while still challenging how representation is constructed.
Overall, Refusal as a Creative Force demonstrates bold ideas in exploring decolonizing documentary practices. The film pushes boundaries with its aesthetic methods and conceptual critique, showing great potential in its use of voice to resist traditional representation. However, further immersion into the lived experiences of the nuns could create a deeper, more relational space for the subjects to speak for themselves. The filmmaker is on the right track, and with more focus on voices and sensory textures, this could evolve into a truly powerful work that honors both form and subject.
All reviews refer to the original research statement which has been edited in response
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