Artist in Focus: Ben Rivers: Short Films
We the People; This Is My Land; The Hyrcynium Wood; Ah, Liberty!; Look Then Below; Ijen / London
Screenings:
In the short films British artist Ben Rivers has made over the past two decades, he records his encounters with artists, geologists, children, friends, workers, mudlarkers, masked utopians, sailors long gone ashore, scientists, collectors, travellers, and more besides. What unites Rivers’s motley dramatis personae, beyond the fact that they all make appearances before his camera? Perhaps little. Then again, the protagonists of these films are all in one way or another concerned with breaking from the crowd—to live differently, to enter other temporalities, to create new worlds within and, in some cases, against the one that exists.
Often working with photochemical film in artisanal and speculative ways, Rivers digs into the rumble of everyday and soars towards the expansiveness of the planetary in films that pose distinct challenges to anthropocentric perspectives and narratives of progress.
Curated by Erika Balsom
Films in the screening:
We the People (United Kingdom 2004; 1 min, no dialogue)
A person is heard fleeing an angry mob – yet the uncannily empty streets show no sign of the chase. A never-ending nightmare. Sound reveals the hidden history in an imagined place.
This Is My Land (United Kingdom 2006; 14 min, in English)
A hand-processed portrait of Jake Williams – who lives alone within miles of forest in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Jake always has many jobs at any one time, rarely throws anything away, is an expert mandolin player, and has compost heaps going back many years. He has a different sense of time to most people in the 21st Century, which is explicitly expressed in his idea for creating hedges by putting up bird feeders.
The Hyrcynium Wood (United Kingdom 2005; 3 min, in English)
A mystery that began as a document of abandoned farms in South East England.
Ah, Liberty! (United Kingdom 2008; 20 min, in English)
A family’s place in the wilderness, outside of time; free-range animals and children, junk and nature, all within the most sublime landscape. The work aims at an idea of freedom, which is reflected in the hand-processed Scope format, but is undercut with a sense of foreboding. There’s no particular story; beginning, middle or end, just fragments of lives lived, rituals performed.
Look Then Below (United Kingdom 2019; 22 min, in English)
Look Then Below was filmed in a Somerset transformed into a coloured, mist-enveloped island in an oily ocean with a cave basking in a subterranean glow. Time seems to stand still there.
Ijen / London (United Kingdom 2022; 7 min, in English)
A short film made in preparation for a longer one called After London, where a young woman goes on a quest to find the mythical city of London. On her journey she comes to a vast toxic swamp, spewing smoke and chemical waste, sulphurous flames emerging from the dead land.
Often working with photochemical film in artisanal and speculative ways, Rivers digs into the rumble of everyday and soars towards the expansiveness of the planetary in films that pose distinct challenges to anthropocentric perspectives and narratives of progress.
Curated by Erika Balsom
Films in the screening:
We the People (United Kingdom 2004; 1 min, no dialogue)
A person is heard fleeing an angry mob – yet the uncannily empty streets show no sign of the chase. A never-ending nightmare. Sound reveals the hidden history in an imagined place.
This Is My Land (United Kingdom 2006; 14 min, in English)
A hand-processed portrait of Jake Williams – who lives alone within miles of forest in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Jake always has many jobs at any one time, rarely throws anything away, is an expert mandolin player, and has compost heaps going back many years. He has a different sense of time to most people in the 21st Century, which is explicitly expressed in his idea for creating hedges by putting up bird feeders.
The Hyrcynium Wood (United Kingdom 2005; 3 min, in English)
A mystery that began as a document of abandoned farms in South East England.
Ah, Liberty! (United Kingdom 2008; 20 min, in English)
A family’s place in the wilderness, outside of time; free-range animals and children, junk and nature, all within the most sublime landscape. The work aims at an idea of freedom, which is reflected in the hand-processed Scope format, but is undercut with a sense of foreboding. There’s no particular story; beginning, middle or end, just fragments of lives lived, rituals performed.
Look Then Below (United Kingdom 2019; 22 min, in English)
Look Then Below was filmed in a Somerset transformed into a coloured, mist-enveloped island in an oily ocean with a cave basking in a subterranean glow. Time seems to stand still there.
Ijen / London (United Kingdom 2022; 7 min, in English)
A short film made in preparation for a longer one called After London, where a young woman goes on a quest to find the mythical city of London. On her journey she comes to a vast toxic swamp, spewing smoke and chemical waste, sulphurous flames emerging from the dead land.