The Unearthings
A Rural Idyll
In the Forest Garden
Inner Landscapes
Absent Presence
Trace
Photomontage
Performative Drawing
Act of Listening
About
@hortus_silvam
single channel colour HD video | stop-motion animation | sound composed-performed on 20 note hand-cranked mechanical musical movement
The fruit is a quince, Cydonia oblonga, grown in the artist’s Forest Garden; beautiful, aromatic with a feminine roundness; the downy skin of youth glows vibrant yellow and ages to deeply crinkled browns.
In this animation the fruits, at different life stages suggest the generations of mother and daughter, the one nurturing the other, taking turns simply to hold one another in an all encompassing embrace. The awkward, distorted melody repeats; a lullaby? Or perhaps a lament?
Taking inspiration from the words of Carl Jung, ’Mother-love’, is one of the most ‘moving and unforgettable memories of our lives. It is ‘the mysterious root of all growth and change; the love that means homecoming, shelter and long silence from which everything begins and in which everything ends…’
2025 screened at DIVFUSE Film Archive No.1 with a theme on domesticity, London