I have had a brilliant week of film thanks to my
participation in HOME artists film Lab. This has been a
brilliant experience to connect with others and talk
about my practice. I was one of 15 artists selected for
this programme at HOME in Manchester, run by Jamie
Allan and Alice Wilde. On Wednesday I went to a
screening of work by Parham Ghalamdar. These were
intricate and delicate animations produced during
lockdown. On Friday I was part of a showreel
screening of work. The Accident appeared on HOME cinema
screens. It was amazing to see my work on a big screen
and I have been getting feedback and questions about
this work. It has been brilliant to reconnect with this
film and to talk about it. On Friday evening I went to
a screening of South. This is a film from 1919 by Frank
Hurley. A documentary film cut and edited into
narrative sequences. This is original footage from
Shackleton’s journey to Antarctica. This trip and film
documents Shackleton’s lost voyage on the Discovery.
I have wanted to see this film footage for years and it
was incredible to see this on a big screen. As a bonus
these is a whole section of documentary style wildlife
footage. This is by Hurley on South Georgia.
It includes rare species of animals and these it is
possible were not screened filmed before Hurley’s
footage. This has been a whole weekend of inspiration,
conversations, dialogue and practice.
The Accident on big screens at HOME, Manchester, 2022.
Source: Artist.
One focus is exploring conditions and creative productivity.
I have a graph of my three films. Between each film
I plotted creativity on my y-axis, creative fulfillment
and time on my x-axis. After reflection on this I am
changing my objectives. Rather than intense highs and
extreme lows in productivity I am now aiming for a
gentle upward curve. I want to find a form of
equanimity where highs and lows balance and create
a smoother graph. This was a brilliant exercise.
I love graphs and mapping and it has been fascinating
to see a visual document of my film journey. Saturday
morning’s workshop was by artist April Lin 林森.
This was about access riders. I used my time to
map and create a documentation project for my
yellow notebooks. I have now 167 complete notebooks.
These are now discontinued from Rymans. My next
project is I am going to edit these 167 notebooks
into one notebook and rebind these pages. I am
going to include a catalogue. This is my Easter
project. It has been brilliant spending time in Manchester.
I spent Saturday night eating noodles in Northern
Quarter. I have inspiration and a lot of work about
practical conditions, how to create, find and map
inspiration, and what practical conditions lead to this
point and create inspiring experiences.
The Dhammapada: Film Inspiration Workshop, 2022.
Source: Artist.
Importance and Achievability Graphs: Sunday, 2022.
Source: Artist.
Creative Fulfillment Graphs, 2022. Source: Artist.
Today I have been considering how to explore
distribution and working on new projects. Sunday
morning’s workshop was Cinecaravan with artists
Laura Taillefer Viñas, Luisa Mello, Atsushi Kuwayama,
Kopal Joshy and Jamie Allan’s work. This included
discussion on alternative distribution models. I
hadn’t considered this for Recipes for Baking Bread.
I have some brilliant ideas about how to connect
with Ukrainian audiences and smaller communities
with my films. Projects in this presentation included
discussion about literature, voice and script. This
was inspiring, I hadn’t and haven’t
considered relationships between reading, fiction,
voice, tone and truth in documentary and how to
create scripts. I’d love to do more work on this. This
morning I got up early and spent my first time in
MMU All Saints Library for two years. I am
re-writing my methodologies. I am adding
definitions of autoethnographic research and
strengthening everything with three key pieces of
literature by Adams & Holman Jones (2014),
Hughes & Pennington (2017) and a new book by
Poulos from 2021. This afternoon was a sound
walk, experiencing three visual shots and narratives
through sound. This reminded me of radio edits
and my start points for Recipes for Baking Bread.
Afterwards I spoke about Eisenstein’s work in
architecture and film. This exercise reminded me of
Eisenstein’s ideas of exploring Acropolis buildings in
Athens. Eisenstein’s ideas are a person walks around
these ancient buildings and experiences long shots,
wide shots, close ups and relationships between
visuals in a similar way to experiencing film.
Eisenstein describes differences between those
processes as a director presenting film to an audience
and in architecture a person walking round to experience
buildings from their own point of view.
(Eisenstein, 1991, p. 60). I’ve loved this
weekend. I have met some brilliant people and had a
lot of space to think and talk about my practice.
My leaving ideas are about growth and expansion,
where I take my practice. Things I do with my
work and a lot of space to be able to explore bigger
ideas and a bigger vision outside my everyday
tasks.
References:
Adams, T. Holman Jones, S. and Ellis, C. (2015) Autoethnography [Online]. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available from: <https://www.vlebooks.com> [Accessed 5 February 2022].
Eisenstein, S. M. [1937-1940] (1991) Selected Works / Vol. 2, Towards a Theory of Montage. Edited by M. Glenny and R. Taylor. Translated by M. Glenny. 2nd ed. London: British Film Institute.
Hughes, S. and Pennington, J. (2017) Autoethnography: Process, Product, and Possibility for Critical Social Research. California: Sage Publications.
Poulos, C. (2021) Essentials of Autoethnography. Washington: American Psychological Association.
