Parlour Collective – new film project

Application summary

The Parlour Collective are a group of artists (David Stearn, Matthew Luck Galpin, Jack Catling) who use performance and film as a way of exploring the relationships between the psychological and somatic aspects of landscape and the lived environment, tracing out the delicate fractures and patterns present. Through this we aim to unearth the small moments of play which underpin the human experience of place; those small suspensions of disbelief which give rise to the narratives unique to each landscape. We have recently been exploring the filmic elements of landscape performance through brief residencies at Surnadal, Norway in 2019 and 2021 which resulted in the projects Shifting Landscapes, Scenes, Overheard (described by artist Lindsay Seers as “Profound, absurd, beautiful and resonant. Playful, poetic and hilarious.”) and From One Place, Another in Tuscany, all of which attempted to weave together impressions of the landscape with the activities and stories of the Surnedal and its inhabitants. We wish to expand this research further, examining the intersections where topography is mediated and metamorphosed via body and story, and the overlaps of body and landscape, mapping out the relationship with space. We are very excited at the prospect of working with new landscapes/environments and communities, examining how a relationship with surrounding landscapes can shape the psyche of small urban spaces and attempting to tease out new narratives from these intersections of architecture, wilderness, transitory space, and memory.