Sophie
Standford
About
A Rural Idyll
In the Forest Garden
Inner Landscapes
Absent Presence
Trace
On paper
In sound

@hortus_silvam

Absent Presence Selected Works

Portrait



colour and black and white HD video 1’42” with stereo sound, 2012-2021
Location: Suffolk/London The trauma felt for the child who fledges. After the fraught, intense slow hours and fast years of nurturing a child into the world, the feeling of absence is devastating; though here the sense of escape is ambiguous. The juxtaposing soundtrack of field recordings tremble with suppressed anxiety and anticipation. 

Portrait was made in collaboration with family members: the artist’s son drew the wings, the artist’s partner operated the video camera, together they were made complicit in the artist’s impending sense of trauma.

2025 screened as part of Dialogues by Sophie Standford (UK) 
DIVFUSE Film Archive No.1 with a theme on domesticity.

captive emancipation
relinquishing
the burden of responsibility
alleviating our separation
without eye contact
our ways diverge

© Sophie Standford, 2025
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