Class of 2025: Emrys Thurgood – Realising the unreal
Emrys Thurgood uses playful characters and uncanny environments to explore the numbness and euphoria of genderqueer derealisation. By JAMIE LIMOND
A spikey, star-headed entity peeps out from behind a door, like something from Tsugumi Ohba’s Death Note. Another star-headed figure, this time in Team Rocket pink, sits forlornly atop a stack of wooden chairs; an image of strangely perky numbness in the middle of a small white room. The characters and scenarios in these photographs are part of an expansive, open narrative exploring UWE student Emrys Thurgood’s struggles with derealisation: a condition of detachment and dissociation common in experiences of gender dysphoria and gender questioning.
The characters in your photographs are trapped in an empty house. It’s almost a cliché now to read the pandemic into anything related to isolation, but did the work develop in any way specifically around that?
My experience of derealisation is actually tied to my experience of lockdown. It was there beforehand but that made it so much worse. A lot of the project is shot around my parents’ house. The upstairs is entirely white floors, white walls, it’s quite an uncanny space. It works as a metaphor for my brain, but it’s also literally where I was for so much of that time! It was the only place that felt real to me during that period and now I’m bringing it back as an unreal place. The house is this enclosing, isolating space, but the other location in the work is the woods, which transition into this more open, euphoric space. I’m playing with the crossover between the two.
Where do the star heads come from?
A star has a physical presence, it’s comforting, but you can’t have any tangible relationship with it because it’s so far away. And that’s what it feels like to be derealised, in a way. Do you know the film I Saw the TV Glow [2024 American psychological drama directed by Jane Schoenbrun]? I don’t know if it’s a spoiler to say that it’s a trans allegory, but the stars are kind of my version of how they use the TV show in that film. That’s all I’ll say. The pink star-headed character is also just something I’ve been drawing for years and years.
Is there an anime influence?
A lot of my references do come from animation and illustration. I think a lot in terms of children’s storybooks when I’m doing the fabrication. I also really love the video game Night in the Woods. It follows a 19-year-old who is experiencing dissociation, and the world they’re in just gets weirder and weirder. I do plan on showing some prints for the degree show, but it will mostly be presented as a photobook. I want to create a very non-linear narrative, and with a book you get this little encapsulated world to play in.
Do you see the non-linearity of photography itself as an advantage?
I think it’s really good for my specific kind of storytelling. You can do things in an abstract way in video, for example, but it’s so much more fun to create these frozen moments and these disconnected little spaces in time through photography; especially as my work is about these numb, unreal spaces. The fact that it’s a silent medium is also good, as it gives another element of detachment from reality. Having these characters who have no opportunity to speak or to be heard plays into that as well.
Are the setups predetermined or is there a lot of improvisation?
Oh, I am meticulous. The clearer the plan I have, the more likely the photograph is going to turn out how I want it. There’s always wriggle room within that, but it’s very planned.
It’s very playful. Do you find it important to reclaim these difficult experiences in that way?
One artist I feel compelled to name-drop is Pia Guilmoth. She’s a trans photographer who lives in rural Maine. Her world is so joyful even though she’s exploring something which hasn’t been the most fun of experiences. At the end of the day, derealisation is just my brain trying to compensate for an overwhelming world around me. But, you know, I’ve got a bit of whimsy about me. There’s nothing so revolutionary as being able to find some kind of personal euphoria within these difficult spaces. I’m very pro that approach.
Degree Show: 7-11 June (PV 6), Arnolfini, 16 Narrow Quay, Bristol BS1 4QA; 26-29 June, Copeland Gallery, Unit 9, Copeland Park, 133 Copeland Road, London SE15 3SN
Top image: Emrys Thurgood, Playground, 47x68cm, photograph, 2024
