Melting frozen emotions

Metanauplius
Metanauplius

Scientists will show my animation, Memories at a krill research conference in Victoria, Canada, this June.

I am planning a slow motion sequence of normal krill development – the control test for the C02 experiments. This will be made from video footage taken at the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).

In January I was at the AAD. I saw a live krill emerging from its egg, and was moved by how it vibrated with new life. Since then I have wanted to animate that moment.

This will be an important addition to the Energies sequence.

After a movement class last night, an idea came up for final piece for that section: myself improvising my own Antarctic memories.

A friend came over after the class and watched my animations. He suggested he video me at the next session, practicing ‘authentic movement’. He had done some of this together last night. This is a practice of moving through impulse, like automatic writing. You improvise with your eyes closed. Another person is your ‘witness’. The witness watches out for your physical safety, and provides feedback at the end. This way of working allows feelings and thoughts to freely emerge.

Responding to questions my new friend asked, about my animations, I found myself able to talk about feelings I had in Antarctica. He had suggested I record our conversation. So now I have some ‘authentic’ talking. I found myself able to reflect on what the animations mean to me.

The thesis writing is going better now. I am just starting to write about my own work, and what it means. It had been difficult to get started on doing this.

Last night I saw my own frozen emotions in Antarctic ice. I could identify things that were going on in my life at that time, which some animations express very clearly: the recent death of my mother and the loss of my daughter. The ice attracted my frozen feelings of experiencing these losses. But I found life in Antarctica. This was unexpected. I found it all around me in the energies that drive it, from great circumpolar current to life force of minute krill.

It’s strange how things work out. Always a low time is followed by finding way forward.

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Posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009