screen reel cathy fitzgerald 2008-12 SD & HD 8:54*

*

Above is the video work I have put together for my video installation for the 9 Stones Artists exhibition I am involved with – it opens next Saturday at Deighton Hall, Carlow (opposite main An Post/Post office) from 12 pm, opening reception at 6pm.

I decided to start the video work with some sights and sounds of NZ forests that have long inspired me. Hokitika (English ‘place of return’) is on the West Coast of the South Island – my mother’s hometown. I spent my very early years on the West Coast and we had a holiday cabin in the area that we visited yearly for many years. My mother often says as a baby she left me outside in a pram in a very rural area near Hokitika that edged onto native forest – the birdsong was deafening apparently. These are the sounds of our bellbirds; I recorded these sounds and images on a recent visit to New Zealand. Following this clip, I then have my video works from 2008-12, almost in chronological order with some of my newer clips near the end.

These are my exhibition notes for the installation

Currently undertaking an artistic PhD enquiry in practice and theory through the National College of Art & Design in Dublin, New Zealander Cathy Fitzgerald, is attempting to characterise the conventions of the ecocidal, anthropocentric (human centered) gaze in cinema and consider a more relational gaze, one that aspires to convey a more ecological (ecocentric) perspective. Her own experimental video work is framed by her focus on undertaking a slow-art, long term transformation of her small (2.5 acre) monoculture conifer plantation, in which she lives in rural Carlow, to a permanent, non clearfell forest. In her video work she is moving from what she perceives as the limiting conventions of standard, narrated nature documentary to more sensitively attend, give more prominence to, the universe of communities that make up her small forest-in-the-making, on which others, human and non-human, and herself depend. Her recent experimental video works are not about environmentalism although she is keenly aware of the rapidly accelerating biosphere instability. She is exploring cinematic forms that may extend our perception to encompass the more-than-human world,  with an awareness that for all beings to thrive and survive, that we need to urgently extend our perceptions to include more recognition of non-human communities.

Here is the exhibition invitation (see more info at 9stonesartists.wordpress.com):

* screen reel is comprised of the following works:

Related articles

• Video works at upcoming 9 Stones Artists exhibtion for Eigse (9stones.wordpress.com)
• 9 Stones artists to exhibit in historic Deighton Hall Carlow, for Eigse 2012 (9stones.wordpress.com)
• The Nine Stones Artists to exhibit at Deighton Hall, Carlow for Eigse 2012 (9stones.wordpress.com)
• Exhibiting with 9 stones artists Carlow (ecoartfilm.com)