Nathan Green
To believe that a life is destined for a single purpose, one must also believe in a common fate. Blood ties can be as solid as they are eternal mother to child, brother to sister, and father to son. But it is the bond from the choices we make that truly direct the roads we travel. True identity can be difficult to perceive, triggering the questioning of our very existence. These questions remain unanswered for an identity cannot be fully defined when it is a guarded secret hidden behind the mask that brings with it comfort, suppressing the true self in deceit. Am I true to myself? Or do I live for the expectations of society?
Throughout life we continuously strive for order and structure, requiring us to be aware of interpretations of experiences we go through in life by logically associating events with the historical sequence of beginning, middle and end. This process turns experiences into stories to be passed on throughout life.
Using family footage, archival material, social media videos and my own filmmaking. I am able to create film that uses this pre-existing material to juxtapose multiple narratives and memories together. The memories I access in my practice are particular personal, family and social histories, each of which was formed by traumatic and historical events. They are the events that stay with you, prominent in memory, shaping character and identity.
Father Son Holy Ghost
Mind Body Spirit
Thought Feeling Emotion
Creator Destroyer Sustainer
Mother Father Child
Past Present Future
You
Trinity Is an ethereal moving picture that takes the form of three films that are screened playing parallel to each other, projected onto a handmade screen. Suspended sheets of semi-transparent paper are stitched, taped and glued together, adding to the films aesthetics of memories that have been sewn together.
Influenced by classical themes such as Memento Mori, Vanitas and the Dance of Death. The film takes footage of family celebrations, new born children, appropriated images of clocks, decaying flowers and rotting animals, to show the passing of time and the fragility of being human, social and political disfunctions taken from news reports and the cremation of past artworks. To prompt a notion of how multiple memories are accessed and viewed internally to illustrate a mental thought process.
Life is complicated, like trying to watch three films at once.