Parts Per Million: eco anxiety and a creative response
This is a guest post from Sean Hall of Vivid Affect Productions. Sean has released a new short film and explains the creative process behind it.
Parts Per Million is a short aerial dance film which explores climate anxiety, the climate crisis, and atmospheric pollution. In the film, Grace Turner’s sky-dwelling aerialist is swept up in alarming and unpredictable atmospheric events, through which she must hold on and get through.
I think when it comes to the climate crisis, for many of us this narrative may not feel unfamiliar. Parts Per Million charts a literal journey through pollution and weather, but also an emotional one – from anxiety, through panic, to action. In my view, we need more narratives and stories which allow us to encounter the climate crisis, that allow us to engage, to process, and to discover avenues of action.
To have been able to create this aerial dance film which engages with the climate crisis with Grace has been brilliant. Dance can often put into movement what is difficult to put into words, and so I think it is a powerful medium through which to explore the climate crisis.
I had met Grace a couple of times before, and when I got in touch about the idea for the film she was very enthusiastic. Before filming, Grace asked me for direction so that she could develop movement. The film sees Grace utilise several aerial skills and tools, each selected to best convey the feelings we were trying to evoke. Grace says “Sean and I began with key words ‘entangled, desperation, searching, suffocating’ from which I explored some movement qualities on rope, silks and cocoon.”
Working together on this project allowed us both to consider our responses to the climate emergency in a creative way, exploring complex feelings through our own forms of art.
I think the film is a great example of how many possible responses there can be to this crisis, and how each of us has the potential to say something and to act in our own way. My filmmaking practice is now very much focussed on the climate crisis, in part because it is a way in which I feel I can contribute and hopefully make a difference. Grace says “I hope that this film allows people to identify with the character, our sense of panic as we try our best to live in an eco-friendly way, but also hope that we are all still trying.”
I think that idea of still trying is so key. When we talk about fear, we often talk about fight, flight, or freeze. When we think about the climate crisis, I think out of the three there is really only one option.
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Parts Per Million is the first of a series of new films from Vivid Affect Productions, all of which are focussed on the climate crisis and environmental issues.
Vivid Affect’s website: https://www.vividaffectproductions.co.uk
Instagram: @VividAffectProductions
Facebook: @VividAffectProductions
Grace Turner
Instagram: @graceturnaround
Website: https://www.turnarounddancetheatre.co.uk
