Moving Still – POOL dives deeper with Sasha Monty
Two of Sasha Monty’s films, Choreographies of Belonging (2024) and Ode to Satie (The Unresolved Chords of the Fragmented Self) (2023) were screened at POOL24.
This is the first article in our special self-portraiture series, focusing on cine-choreographic filmmaking practices where portraiture, research or expression of artists’ own body, mind or universe is an emphasised artistic approach. The series is curious about practices where artists use their own bodies as medium or methodology, to describe something within or beyond themselves.
24.1.2025
Article by Silja Tuovinen
Images from the archive of Sasha Monty
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Performance, not dance
What is beautifully visible in Sasha Monty’s art, is the journey of artistic self-discovery that they have gone through over decades: departing from dancing and arriving through photography to filmmaking. One can spot traces of all these fields in Sasha’s work. Their films methodologically escape definition and categorisation. “My approach is as follows: what can I do on the formal level to break this apart? What can I do to a film to make it not a film? What kind of different photographs could I combine to create more than something which is concerned with the still image? This can be in how I stitch still images together to create a moving image or how I paint on top of photographs to create unique objects”.
Sasha trained as a dancer at Rambert in London in 2004-2005 and eventually realized that dancing alone was not going to be enough as a mechanism of self-discovery. Sasha turned to photography. “I always had a deep interest in photography and specifically images, I realize now, of women. It started naively as a teenager looking at images by Herb Ritts or Man Ray. You might think that looking at images of models does not really have an impact on what you might be interested in later – but my practice has become invested in trying to encapsulate a certain kind of femininity which was relevant to me and which I find empowering. Those men were photographers who to a certain extent objectified women. By exploring my own gender using a variety of techniques I am attempting to make a commentary, above all else, about identity”.
Sasha began the MFA in moving image at Goldsmith’s in 2020. The film that got Sasha into the programme was a dance film entitled After the Rain (2019), a portrait of dancer Ed Monroe and his exploration of his own femininity. “He brought a certain queerness into the equation, which he was very confident about, and which I really responded to. At Goldsmiths one of my tutors said to me: well, your film about Ed is great, but why are you making a film about Ed? I think the film you want to be making is about you. That was a eureka moment. I knew that already, but suddenly the permission I was not able to give myself was being granted.”
I am finally at a point where I can say: my work is about performance. It is about gender. It is about so many things that I’m now comfortable with, which I did not really have the tools to explore before.”
Sasha started this exploration with a lot of self-portraits, that for a long time never featured their face. “When you turn the camera on yourself, what you end up not showing almost becomes more eye-opening. I went on a long journey to get to where I am now. I am finally at a point where I can say: my work is about performance. It is about gender. It is about so many things that I’m now comfortable with, which I did not really have the tools to explore before.”
At Goldsmith’s Sasha came to realise that they had never found the right context for dance. They were actually more interested in performance, not dance. “A ballet school or even performing on a conventional stage was not the right place for me. It took me 15 years of not dancing, and grieving it, to understand this. In my late thirties at Goldsmith’s I came to understand that I am actually really interested in performance. Performance could encapsulate so much more for me and allow me to say things I could not say merely with dance alone. The frame would be my stage and the lens, my teacher.”

Finding oneself from in front of the camera
What remains to this day as part of Sasha’s artistic practice is an act of placing themselves in front of the camera. The artist’s own body is the medium, or a vessel for describing something beyond that particular body itself. “I see myself as a channel – I am channelling some kind of a message. I am simply the lucky recipient of that information, and then it is my responsibility to share it in a way which can hopefully guide, enlighten, teach. To open up the conversation around these themes is the driving force.”
There are two multitudes or personalities that appear in Sasha’s films: there’s Alexander and then there’s Sasha. Alexander is who you’ll meet in the everyday world going about mundane life, Sasha is who appears more in artistic settings. But neither is never completely without the other – lines are blurred. “In the film choreographies of belonging, it is Alexander on a rock. You cannot see his face. In the film Ode to Satie, it is the beginning of Sasha. I guess Sasha does identify as a woman, but not really, because Alexander and Sasha are not separate people.”
I would say my films are self-portraits because I am trying to understand who I am as a whole through these films.
This pairing of Alexander and Sasha is an avenue for investigation between masculine and feminine, and their performativity. ”I am interested in how masculine and feminine cannot live without one another, and they are part of this Yin and Yang that we all share. No matter how we identify, we are all constructed of masculine and feminine energies. So, I think to try and make that differentiation between Sasha and Alexander does not work. The work is rather about how those two people can interconnect and create a cohesive whole. I would say my films are self-portraits because I am trying to understand who I am as a whole through these films. These are not just simply performative versions of me. They are the real me using performance as a way of seeing myself to better understand myself, and ultimately help others who might be on a similar journey”.

Still, moving
What is striking in both of Sasha’s films Choreographies of Belonging and Ode to Satie screened at POOL in 2024 is their methodology and aesthetics that arise from overlaying still image with moving image, creating sensory paradoxes for their audience.
This strategy appears to be a reaction, and in part criticism, toward the medium of photography. “The single image is a very dangerous thing because it is very restrictive. One image can sometimes carry too much meaning or not enough meaning. But I feel that there is no middle space for exploration. This led me to do my MFA at Goldsmith’s specializing in moving image because I realized that movement and film, not as a narrative art form, but as an abstracted art form, is what I had to explore in order to break the still image apart to arrive at a truth that lies beyond the sometimes superficial mechanisms at play with the task of image-making”.
What can I do to create that dialogue between something that is still and something that is moving? What can I do to make a commentary about myself in a particular moment, or myself in an extended moment?”
In Sasha’s thinking it appears as if the moving image releases the image from its still frame. “I’m always looking to kind of break open the image. The single image is for me only half of the story. It does not open up to complexity in the same way that film or performance allow.” The relationship between the moving and the still image is for Sasha a dialogue between performance and photography. What can I do to create that dialogue between something that is still and something that is moving? What can I do to make a commentary about myself in a particular moment, or myself in an extended moment?”
Performance and performativity of film is more important for Sasha than any technical excellence. “I’m not really interested in what the camera can do or cannot do technically. My work is always very Lo-fi. I am not so interested in what I can do to make this look good.” Again, this approach can be seen a response to break away from certain traditions and expectations coming from photography. “When I was a photographer, I was obsessed with the image and its beauty. I would think: my body does not look good enough in that photo. It looks good in this one. I was invested in all these mechanisms that you use in photography to create this perfect image, to arrive at a socially constructed version of what we think beauty looks like. I absolutely do not use that in performance and film. It is very liberating as a result because it is never just about beauty anymore”.

Safe spaces for filming
“Place always plays such a huge role.” Sasha shoots their films both outside in the landscape and inside in spaces such as living rooms and garages – spaces which are accessible, familiar and comfortable. Sasha started to take their first photographic self-portraits on their partner’s parent’s house on a small island in Brittany, France. “When the tide comes up, no one can go on the island anymore. Therefore, often we would be on the island alone. It’s very rare in life that you have a place like that, where there is no one else. So, when the tide would come up, that became the green light to experiment.”
For Sasha, landscapes are both metaphors and places for connection, but also concretely safe spaces for making art. “Themes of time and grace are very important to me when I’m in the landscape. But more importantly, the landscape is a safe space for me. Landscapes are places that I can rely on for inspiration. The landscape is always accepting of me. It is disappearing, but it is still there. And my body is part of that story. The sea, the rocks and my skin are all the same. We are all the product of chance and destiny.”
Today, Sasha’s practice has evolved to include other spaces apart from the natural world, though these will always be featured also. “I don’t know if the landscape is more important for me than shooting here in my living room, like I did for Ode to Satie. I can do it very comfortably both inside and outside. As long as they identify to me as safe spaces where I feel fully present, then I can do what I need to do to get to the next stage of the journey”.
These days it is the performance which is key. The habitat, whether inside or outside, has become secondary. “I am really interested in the performance itself. I might move a few things around, but I do not let myself become distracted with practicalities. There is a beautiful car park next to our house where we have a parking space. It is white and there is a glass roof. I shoot a lot in there because the light is wonderful. It has become an extension of my studio. A stage of sorts for me to experiment and push the whole thing forward.”
Sasha Monty
Sasha Monty’s practice explores and celebrates the gendered journey by connecting the still and moving image through the medium of performance. Their work is committed to bringing into being and witnessing themes relating to metamorphosis and interconnected notions of transformation, belonging and healing.
Sasha Monty holds an MA in Artists’ Film & Moving Image (Goldsmiths, University of London), an MA in History of Art (University of Oxford), and a BA in Social and Political Sciences (University of Durham). They also trained in ballet and contemporary dance (Rambert, London, under the Thérèse Cantine scholarship).
Their exhibition history consists of The Shape of the Divine at Les Insolites (Tangier, Morocco); Just a Dream at Sarah Shepard Gallery (USA); Into the Light at Vanessa Vainio Gallery (Cromwell Place, London); Dancing on the Moon at Noho Gallery (London) and The Agony & The Ecstasy, MFA Degree Show (Goldsmiths, London).