The Book of Margery Kempe, dictated by the English mystic of the title, is considered to be the first

autobiographical work in the English language. It is a strange book that exceeds easy classification and

brings to life not a singular person but a variety of possible identities: mother, wife, heretic, laywoman,

businesswoman, pilgrim, madwoman, wise woman. As a reader, one’s feelings swerve around the subject,

from annoyance to admiration, from boredom to fascination. Most compelling of all is that Margery refers

to herself throughout the book as “this creature.” A sensing, desiring body intertwines with the practical

necessity of surviving as a female writer without being labelled a heretic, writing a text where the body

and its dissimilarities create a form—one strange yet familiar—that destabilises our position as readers. “This creature” infects form and infects us. The nature of this creature is unlocatable, but very much alive.

 

This Creature weaves a narrative whose starting point was a failed request to view the oldest known manuscript of The Book of Margery Kempe housed in the British Library. The desire to touch, being touched, being “touched,” and the variety of illnesses ascribed by scholars to what Margery called her gift of weeping, brush against questions of voice—having voice, hearing voices, speaking other voices. The film, shot on an i-Phone, depicts a series of “touchies” or “feelies” with sculptural and architectural elements in Hyde Park (whose public access depends on the grace and favour of The Crown) and the tame birds who inhabit it.