A curved sliver of sand, like a pale brushstroke in the North Atlantic Ocean: this is Sable Island, where environmentalist Zoe Lucas has lived for over 40 years.
Geographies of Solitude immerses us into the rhythms of her work, studying the horses, seals, bugs, and vegetation that form Sable Island’s rich ecosystem. Captured with attentive intimacy and lush materiality by Jacquelyn Mills on 16mm film – occasionally hand-processed with seaweed, horse manure, and exposed with starlight – this beautiful portrait of Sable Island is not an untroubled one. For 15 years, Lucas has been documenting the marine litter that washes onto shore; wild, harmonious cycles of life and death are juxtaposed with the inorganic eternity of plastics.
A breathtaking meditation on our entanglement with the world around us, and finding our way back.
Content notes: Contains depictions of animal and insect remains, and animal birth (including brief depiction of blood). Contains discussions of animal death.
Access notes: Mainly bright images with some flickering shots from experimentally processed analogue film; mix of explanatory dialogue (in English) and visual storytelling.
Presented as part of Take One Action’s nationwide tour of Geographies of Solitude. This precedes a 2023 festival taking place in Glasgow (6-10 December) exploring ‘Renewal’: of art, material, environment, and society.
