Finding a Language, Flax 008

Flax, in partnership with the Nuffield Theatre at Lancaster University, have commissioned poet Josephine Dickinson and filmmaker Simon Wainwright to create five short text-based films.

Their starting point was the university, and the film incorporates some of the history and heraldic symbolism of it and the area (the lion, the open book, the two roses etc). Below you can watch the end point: a punchy, eerie, poignant, romantic and hopeful sequence of films; each complete but a larger picture becomes apparent when you watch them all.

Finding a Language, Flax008

Click the images below to view the poem.

verse one	verse two	verse three	verse four	verse five

“A precedent of a sort was Auden's Night Mail, but the difference here was that his poem is designed for voice over and as a 'commentary' on a film. In this project, on the other hand, we were trying to create a hybrid, a collaboration, an organic form: film grafted on to the rootstock of poetry, or vice versa? Or both?

We had a rich subject matter in the location, time and setting, and we had between us a rich and complementary cultural treasury spanning film, music, theatre, poetry, philosophy, classics, literature, dance, history, spirituality and more.”
Josephine Dickinson


“Josephine and I come from two completely different artistic worlds, both in terms of what inspires us and how we approach projects and this has led to a fantastic debate opening out. Because of the open nature of the project it felt almost like we were sculpting – trying to carve a shape or meaning out of a mass of ideas. The big ask was to respond with flare to a beautifully rich and lyrical text.”
Simon Wainwright

A partnership project with The Nuffield and supported by the Arts Council of England through the AmbITion project.