The Unearthings
A Rural Idyll
In the Forest Garden
Inner Landscapes
Absent Presence
Trace
Photomontage
Performative Drawing
Act of Listening
About
@hortus_silvam
2018-2024
Moving image; composed soundscape; writing
Inner landscapes of mind and body, real or imagined, and their capacity to contain and sustain us, to constrain and enslave us.
Single channel colour HD video, stereo sound, text
Illicitly,
breathe the dust
listen to the acoustic and inaudible
look out from within
exist and disappear like centuries of congregational souls:
arcane architecture, toll of time, neglect and decay,
mysterious, redolent, tangible atmosphere
Liminal is a short moving image work taking guidance from the ghost as a liminal figure, in response to the uncanny experience of being in a village church that has traced eight centuries of births and deaths. The work imagines being trapped between worlds, tangled in the passing of time, the awe and fear inspired by the church’s light, space, acoustic and curious arcane details, within and without. The hours of empty silence fall as light and shadow in this redolent, neglected place, enhancing its eerie, hypnotic sensation. The ghost provides a poetic pathway for disappearing from oneself.
Location: Suffolk, UK
Selected work on the theme of inner landscapes of mind and body, inspired by the ephemeral, intangible, liminal encounters with moments of magical thinking which move on the edge of our senses, transformed into a visceral, poetic narrative.
memory, magic realism, poetic narrative, listening
© Sophie Standford