Flow Country
In Flow Country, an anonymous narrator investigates a 16mm film as an archaeological record. He wonders to what degree the landscape it depicts influenced the production of the film. While scanning the stark images of a deserted landscape, the idea arises that the “archaeology of the present” can be a site of production – where ecology and people play equal parts. The role of the archaeologist transforms from being the observer of a disconnected past towards becoming an immersed wonderer, actively creating future historical layers.
Like a visual fieldwork notebook, the fragmented scenes of a 16mm film pose a question: what does it mean to survey the layers of past and present in a desolate landscape? Remnants of ecological and social transformations are brought into view as historical records of a contested site. The Flow Country is the largest expanse of blanket peat in the Northern hemisphere and is of international significance because it provides a habitat for many unique and rare communities and species of specialized flora and fauna. Attempts at industrialization in the form of tax deduction forests, military test flights, hydropower, as well as nuclear and wind energy have left their mark. More recent changes to the landscape were initiated by peat land restoration, wildlife protection, and research into the carbon reducing capacities of moss. By navigating sound equipment and camera through the land in the company of an archaeologist, the film superimposes earlier attempts to designate or desecrate this vast expanse – blurring the distinction between that which is, has been, or is yet to come.
The film forms the latest addition to an on-going series of works in relation to the Flow Country, Forsinard, Sutherland, Northern Scotland, UK.
Released on Rietveld TV by Gerrit Rietveld Academie
Daniel Lee – Archaeologist (University of the Highlands and Islands, UK)
Casper Brink – Cinematographer (NL)
Malu Peeters – Field recorder (NL)
Alan Currall – Narrator
Hyun Tae Lee – Animator
To view the film and for more information about the project, follow these links:
https://archaeologistsinresidence.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/flow-country-2-short-film/
