A Rural Idyll
In the Forest Garden
Inner Landscapes
Absent Presence
Trace
Photomontage
Performative Drawing
Act of Listening
About
@hortus_silvam
Dialogue with my Father
2022- ongoing
Performance; sound composition; video montage
A series of conversations with my father.
Single channel colour HD video stereo sound composition
Cinematic screening: 7 mins 20 sec
Gallery | Site specific exhibition: continuous loop with sound-headphones or conventional speakers recommended for more detailed listening.
What if you just cannot allow yourself to let go of something, because it reminds you so profoundly of the person who has gone? What if this holding on to the past has become self destructive, to the point where objects are taking over?
The artist pushes the heavy bulk of this domestic, upright piano around on the concrete floor trying and failing to find it space in the room. Frustration strips the piano of its dignity. Braced, it fights back stoically, belligerent, vibrating a dance to its raucous rumbling, dainty wheels twist in agony under its defiant weight, before taking you on a mesmerising journey inside the piano accompanied by a composition that gives voice to its involuntary creeks and resonances.
The role of Literary Executor weighs an enormous sense of responsibility for the artistic career of another. Through manuscript paper and writing implements, the familial piano, Dialogue with my Father is an ongoing project creating a space to converse in the absence; composer father, artist daughter.
Location: Suffolk
When does holding on become self-destructive? Absence Presence is an ongoing project of visual laments, exploring intergenerational aspects of loss and grief.
2025 screened as part of Dialogues by Sophie Standford (UK)
DIVFUSE Film Archive No.1 with a theme on domesticity.
objects of grief, memory, intergenerational
© Sophie Standford