It Matters What

Absences and translations motivate this experimental animation in an exploration of the methods and materials of reproduction and inscription. The inquiry is set within a framework of practical and critical human relationships with other-than-human-species elucidated by the theorist Donna Haraway. A fragment from Haraway’s essay “Tentacular Thinking: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene” is reworked here as a poetic manifesto. Enigmatic found-footage calls into question human violence over animal species. Plant life is both the subject matter of the images and assists the means of photographic reproduction.  The techniques used include in-camera animation, contact prints and phytograms created by the exposure of 16mm film overlaid with plant material and dried for hours in direct sunlight.  Best Local Film Award, Alucine Festival, Toronto, Canada, 2019 Image Description: A sepia-toned archival image of a woman standing and holding the body of a large bird (an owl?) with its wings outstretched. Vivid orange blotches cover parts of the wings and lower half of the image.