Video essayist Grace Lee interrogates the definition of the term 'video essay' and explores the impulse to define and categorise the videos (and sandwiches) we consume

The video essay has become one of the most popular and impactful forms of online cultural commentary: a canvas for critics, academics, artists and assorted enthusiasts alike.

This work from 2021 sees Grace Lee wrestling with the medium of the video essay itself. As it grew in popularity on YouTube and other platforms, what was once a flexible, innovative tool for 'videographic criticism' had started to become an unwieldy, all-encompassing term.

In response, Grace Lee assesses the full spectrum – and potential – of the medium, using their own conflicted feelings about the act of drawing up classifications and categories as a way to explore our human tendency towards fixed definitions in life and art. Along the way, Lee teases out the distinctions between articles and essays, academics and critics, information and art.

The resulting video is something of a triple threat: it introduces, dismantles and celebrates the video essay, all at once.

Grace Lee is the creator of the YouTube channel ‘What’s So Great About That?’, where they examine “the connections between media, philosophy and art - and how ideas and images reoccur in fiction and culture.”

Equal parts rigorous, thoughtful, irreverent and idiosyncratic, Lee’s highly entertaining and enlightening videos have covered themes ranging from the films of David Lynch, to video games such as A Night in the Woods and Untitled Goose Game, to the decluttering philosophy of Marie Kondo.