Projects

The Seven Themes – A Work in Progress

16.5.2017

Confluence - Blog number 7 – by Laura Hudson Mackay

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Being in any collaboration requires the people involved to talk regularly in order to share their ideas, thoughts and work in progress. An international collaboration is therefore challenging as distance and language can be a barrier and cultural differences need to be explained and explored in detail.

As four artists working together on' Confluence', we are overcoming these obstacles, mostly via technology/social media where we are free to ask each other questions and share the ideas and thoughts we have almost instantly. We’ve had discussions late into the evenings on mythical beings, shared images and stories to inspire each other creatively and to give understanding.

Here’s a sneak peak of our work in progress, just a taste of what has been happening along the 'Confluence' journey.  

Through our conversations we have chosen to look at seven themes, which run throughout the traditional stories in both Arabian and Celtic Culture. These are:

1. Water

2. Old

3. Silence

4. Time

5. Money

6. Happiness

7. The number 3!

To start things off, here is a photograph of Houssain’s desk during the editing of a video of Mehdi telling the story of the Three Sons and the Three Chests. The video is now complete and ready to be shown at Spring Fling (Studio 49).



Looking at the theme of Water, Anne is working on story about a Kelpie, which tells of love, pride and sacrifice.



'Lala Purple' is a modern day tale written by Mehdi, which explores all seven of the themes.



Looking at Water and the general concept of ‘Confluence’ within my own work in progress, I am fascinated by the flows of water and tides.  The Solway coastline provides a rich resource and I have been capturing aerial shots of the saltmarshes and mudflats at Mersehead and Wigtown Bay, Dumfries and Galloway (I take the images using a camera drone).  I have recently been exploring how these photographs of the coastline from above could be incorporated into new work for the project.




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