Whale Watching
2021. Digital Film.
‘Whale Watching’ follows the personal tale of an unfulfilled desire of seeing a living whale. Having never seen this creature for themself, the narrator is forced to look through the eyes of others, assembling fragments of found footage in an attempt to construct a picture of the elusive animal.
Using observation, imagination, recollection and research as methods for storytelling ‘Whale Watching’ draws upon the multiplicity of the whale’s existence; from museum specimen to stranded on the beach. The story journeys through the body of the whale examining each part like an autopsy, although not trying to determine a cause of death but instead to gain an understanding of how the animal lives. Finally arriving at the head of the animal, the narrator comes eye to eye with the whale - albeit through the screen - offering a moment to reflect on the motives for the act of looking itself.
Commissioned for ‘Aquaria - Or the Illusion of a Boxed Sea’ at MAAT Museum (Lisbon) curated by Angela Rui, with Sound Design by Kirsten Spruit. The script for the film can be read in essay form at the following link https://ext.maat.pt/longforms/whale-watching
Selected stills from the film.