30 min, HD Video (originally shot on 16mm with some digital intervention)
Lightness is artist Katie Goodwin’s first 16mm film exploring the wonders of the night sky and the challenges of seeking such wonders in Britain due to burgeoning light pollution.
The film is inspired by an unforgettable night camping under the stars in the Australian outback a decade ago and the artist’s frustration whilst in London at looking up at the night sky and seeing orange. A little bit of magic disappears from our grey world. Lightness is a quest to relive the outback experience and find the Milky Way. Lightness was shot on location at the end of summer 2014 in Greenwich, London, home to the Royal Observatory, and in the remote village of Glenelg, Scotland, a community trying to attain Dark Skies status.
Lightness portrays the struggle between our modern urban life of safety and compartmentalisation and our inherent need to connect with nature and experience magical moments that stay with us forever. An at times philosophical and often poetic view of the world told by the Royal Observatory astronomers, Tom Kerss and Dr Marek Kukula, is interwoven with stories and footage of the Glenachulish crew operating the community owned tourist ferry which runs between Glenelg and the Isle of Skye.
The film explores themes that recur in Goodwin’s practice: nature, labour, technology and time.
As part of the Lightness project there is an online research blog which has been contributed to by myself and other artists: Alex March, Jane Harris, Karen David, Ian Maslen, Holly Stevenson & Othello De Souza Hartley. Lightness will prelude a sister film project called Kaamos made whilst on a HIAP /Australian Arts Council residency in Finland over the winter of 2014-15.
Lightness was generously funded by an Arts Council England Grant for the Arts.
A brilliant text about Kaamos & Lightness films by artist Karen David can be read here
Exhibitions & Screenings:
Solo Screening, as part of HIAP residency, Gallery Augusta, Helsinki - 5th Feb 2015
Lightness (solo screening, Stephen Lawrence Gallery, University of Greenwich, London, followed by a Q&A with Astronomers - 16th Feb 2015
Harmaus | Greyness, (solo show) Temporary-Arts-Project, Southend, UK - June 2015
Micro Macro, (solo show) Qube gallery, Oswestry, UK - 8th July-3rd Aug 2015
Without Shores, ASC Gallery, London Sept 2015
A-E-T-H-E-R, Jarvis Dooney Gallery, Berlin 20 Feb - 2 Apr 2016
Gödöllő film festival, Budapest 18-22 May 2016
