In Rise and Fall – A Short Film-Poem About Connection artist and writer James Roberts shares his short, award-winning film-poem, which gives us all space, an invitation to find calm, to experience our local rivers, to find a practice of connection and show reverence. James says:
“This is what I want to see: a farmer walking down to a nearby stream first thing in the morning, before they start their long workday. When they reach it, they spend a few minutes watching and listening. Then they bow. Or a group of children on their way to school going to the riverbank to drop flowers from their gardens into it, watched smiling by their investment banker parents. This is not part of some new-age religion — it’s simply a practice of connection. Start the day with something important. Show some reverence.”
In ‘Rise and Fall’ – which won the Clare Crossman Prize at the Cambridge Rivers of Film Festival, a prize honouring the work of the late poet and ClimateCultures member – James invites us to ‘find our way back’:
“The film is deliberately slow … shot in black and white, as simple as I could make it. This is to give us all a little space. Nick Sergent composed a beautiful cello soundtrack, which helps slow the piece down further. It’s an invitation to calm, and hopefully a way for you to reconnect with your local river.
“For me, we have to find practices that reconnect us to the real, to move away from the virtual. Find our way back to what we are — animals, dependent on other animals, the soil, the rivers.”
Other recent posts include ‘Protest Posters for the Earth’ from artist Micheal Gresalfi (who also collaborated with artist Eva Strautmann on The Wood Wide Web – Fruitful Collaboration) and Eternal Forest Sanctuary: Vision to Living Commitment from artist Evgenia Emets. And our Creative Showcase features Delicate Resilience: Where Nature Refuses to Give Up by artist Ifeoluwa Abhulimen.
All the best
Mark
