Lightness is artist Katie Goodwin’s first 16mm film exploring the wonders of the night sky and the challenges of seeking such wonders in the UK, due to burgeoning light pollution.
The screenings will run on the half hour, every half hour from 6-7pm and be followed at 7:30pm by a Q&A session led by Dr Marek Kukula and Tom Kerss from the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
The film is inspired by an unforgettable night camping under the stars in the Australian outback in her twenties and her quest to relive the experience. Lightness was shot on location at the end of summer 2014 in Greenwich, home to the Royal Observatory, and in the remote Scottish Highlands village of Glenelg, a community trying to attain Dark Skies status. Lightness portrays the struggle between our modern urban life of safety and compartmentalisation and our inherent need to connect with nature and experience those magical moments that stay with us forever. A sometimes philosophical and poetic view of the world told by the Royal Observatory astronomers, Tom Kerrs and Marek Kukula, is interwoven with stories and footage of the Glenachulish crew operating the community-owned tourist ferry which runs between Glenelg and the Isle of Skye. The film explores themes that recur in Goodwin’s practice: darkness, nature, labour, technology and time.
Lightness was generously funded by an Arts Council England Grant for the Arts.
www.lightnessfilm.tumblr.com
About Katie Goodwin
Katie Goodwin is a London-based artist and graduate of Goldsmiths and Wimbledon College of Art. She has exhibited in galleries and film festivals worldwide, including Tate Modern, ICA, Barbican, Site gallery & S1 Artspace, Sheffield, T-A-P, Southend, CAST, Hobart, MADA gallery, Melbourne and National Museum, Trinidad. Prominent exhibitions include New Contemporaries 2011 and the touring exhibition 971 Horses & 4 Zebras. Her solo show at Art Lacuna, London screened the Wellcome Trust funded film Small Wonders, nominated for Best Documentary at LSFF 2015. The 3D surround sound film follows a microbiologist’s lifetime work and was her first collaboration with a scientist. Previous artist residencies include with Pixel Palace in Newcastle Upon Tyne (2011). She is currently artist in residence over winter 2014-15 at HIAP on Soumenlinna Island in Helsinki where she is shooting a 16mm film, Kaamos, the sister film to Lightness, which explores the human impact of living in darkness and the changing nature of the northern hemisphere winter due to global warming.
www.katiegoodwin.com
booking
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