The Unearthings
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 HD video | 16:9 | colour | 7’20” | sound
What if you just cannot allow yourself to let go of something, because it reminds you so profoundly of the person who has gone. Yet holding on becomes destructive and objects are taking over. In Dialogue with my Father, the heavy bulk of a neglected, domestic, upright piano is pushed around on a concrete floor trying in vain to find the right place. 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 drawing you into a mesmerising journey giving voice to the piano’s involuntary creeks and resonances. Dialogue with my Father is the proximity of conversing with an absent presence; 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