Visioning

A Film by Jack Talty and Dan O'Connell

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Visioning reflects on the potentially transformative impacts of reappraising our relationship with the familiar. The work, which includes Sightings, a poem written and read by Irish poet, Jane Clarke, celebrates the beauty and uniqueness of the Burren landscape while encouraging us to appreciate the fragility of our local environments. The piece opens with music and imagery that feel known to us. We then enter a liminal space that encounters anti-structure and uncertainty, but ultimately offers a portal to new possibilities. In the words of Victor Turner, we are “betwixt and between.” This period of instability resolves to take us to a post-liminal state that invites a renewed connection with the frequently undervalued ‘structure’ or fabric of our everyday lives, the profoundly distinctive and special places that we are fortunate to inhabit daily.

 

 

A contemplation on the Aisling tradition, the film presents a vision or visioning (if we consider both observation and a desire to inspire change) of what a sustained commitment to our environment can achieve for successive generations. Visioning celebrates what we have, but cautions against complacency.

 

The work also explores the artistic impetus emanating from the Otherworld, and the centrality of the hare in Irish mythology. Inspired by the concept of the Hare’s Corner, the final section of the film introduces Treo na Tairsí (translated loosely as ‘the way of the portal or threshold’), a piece of music for concertina, clarinet, and string ensemble. The Hare’s Corner refers to that piece of rough land that was traditionally seen as awkward to farm and consequently left to nature, thereby promoting biodiversity and transformation. In addition to the numerous practical benefits that this contributes to the natural world, the Hare’s Corner is also explored here as a rich conceptual metaphor for creativity and artistic expression, a place in which we strive to foster moments of transformation and possibility.

 

 

Visioning was commissioned by Burrenbeo Trust as part of their Turas -  Journeys in Stewardship Project, and funded by Creative Ireland’s Creative Climate Action Fund.

 

 

Cinematography & Editing by Dan O’Connell

Music Composed by Jack Talty

 

Featuring:

 

Jack Talty: Concertina & Sound Design

Neil Ó Lochlainn: Double Bass

Úna Nic Lochlainn: Violins, Viola, Cello & Guitar

Matthew Berrill: Clarinet & Bass Clarinet

 

Sightings written and read by Jane Clarke

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