Dark
2024. Digital video, 1000s of photographs.
Poet: James E. Kenward.
A world of people are plunged into darkness and forced to negotiate themselves mirrored back in black - only to find occasional moments of strange relief amidst the beauty of nothing.
When I read the poem, Dark (by James E. Kenward), my mind couldn't help but begin working on the challenges of presenting it visually. What a possibility… to present the dark in light! I enquired of James; and when he spoke the poem I was hooked. There’s a flow that takes you straight into a world in which we are often fearful to tread, and though it took a long time to find the perfect visuals – everything seemed either too twinkly or bright with light-source, or too black and dark, or too obvious and dull – there was always an essence I was sure I could catch if I worked for it. It wasn’t easy.
Poet: James E. Kenward.
A world of people are plunged into darkness and forced to negotiate themselves mirrored back in black - only to find occasional moments of strange relief amidst the beauty of nothing.
When I read the poem, Dark (by James E. Kenward), my mind couldn't help but begin working on the challenges of presenting it visually. What a possibility… to present the dark in light! I enquired of James; and when he spoke the poem I was hooked. There’s a flow that takes you straight into a world in which we are often fearful to tread, and though it took a long time to find the perfect visuals – everything seemed either too twinkly or bright with light-source, or too black and dark, or too obvious and dull – there was always an essence I was sure I could catch if I worked for it. It wasn’t easy.
There are images chosen for their poetic history in the figurative, such as the opening mise-en-scène using a detail from a Jan Van de Velde II engraving made in 1621 entitled ‘Amor as Arsonist’ - the story of Love burning down a building in the night! But the film is predominantly a collage of my photographs, and I had to travel down into the deepest depths of the earth, below the Austrian mountains to find what I wanted. The light in a number of images is thrown from a magnesium flare, in Europe's largest ice cave, others from a torch in one of the oldest silver mines of the Middle Ages.
And, late on in my process, images of lake-swimming in early light were perfect to catch the mellifluous nature of James’s poetic delve through darkness. When James said he was having a new transposition of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring recorded, played by concert pianist Bota Zakir in duet with his vocal, I knew we would bring together something really special. There are so many layers to this film-soundtrack combination that cut through to a particular place in the soul. I’m very grateful to have been able to collaborate with these wonderful artists so as to connect many parts to make a greater whole.
And, late on in my process, images of lake-swimming in early light were perfect to catch the mellifluous nature of James’s poetic delve through darkness. When James said he was having a new transposition of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring recorded, played by concert pianist Bota Zakir in duet with his vocal, I knew we would bring together something really special. There are so many layers to this film-soundtrack combination that cut through to a particular place in the soul. I’m very grateful to have been able to collaborate with these wonderful artists so as to connect many parts to make a greater whole.
