RADIANT COMMUNITIES
Folded Island digital film, 2022. 2k/4k / 1.90 / 15 min
Island Library digital film installation, 2022. 2k / 1.33 / 20 min
The art and ecology teaching project, Radiant Communities, asks the question “How do we collectively imagine a multi-species, collaborative future for the communities of Sarasota?
Under the direction of filmmaker Wes Kline and ecologist Dr. Emily Heffernan, volunteer non-professional participants imagined that they were an isolated future community living on Tidy Island, an island located in the north of Sarasota Bay, and produced dynamic and interactive images of their own community through movements that embodied community interactions, enabling participants to picture and embody the structures that would make their communities vibrant and connected. The result is an ecstatic interplay of participatory subjectivities and gestures, forming an island of ritualized ecological conjuring.
Two films were produced out of the project. The first was Folded Island, an experimental participatory film that used choreography and movement to engage with ecological relations and the “place” of Tidy Island itself. The second is an accompanying installation film titled Island Library.
Island Library compiles texts chosen by the project participants that develop historical, literary and cultural concepts about “community” such as utopia, presence, exchange and ecology. This created a kind of temporal ‘library’ for their temporary community, and a series of exchanges involving speaking and listening. Each text is read by the community member who chose it.
Radiant Communities is funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Password: island
Password: island
