Ant Film script

Disrupted landscapes

When a system is forced to collapse, fall, paralyses what do we do?

How do we sustain ourselves for a better future?

How can we creatively survive in a time of pandemic?

The ants are in a state of discourse their habitat disrupted, turned upside-down and collapsed. They are forced to move, to walk a new path. To change direction and consider a new route. They walk through their pre-existing landscape, moving collectively through the roots of the old ways, their landscape interconnected, everchanging, moveable. When we are faced with a time of crisis which forces us to change the direction of our lives, it gives us an opportunity to stop, reflect and meditate. The pre-existing structures are no longer useful for the ants to sustain life, they have eggs that need a better habitat to hatch and grow within. They are forced to move there everchanging landscape to pave new routes, paths and structures that are better suited to their requirements. Yet to achieve this new path, they have to walk those old routes of change for such change to manifest.

“There are many interpretations and ways of understanding it, but walking is definitely not only about moving our feet in one direction. The practice of walking has been addressed by many authors, who analysed its multiple concepts and meanings through different perspectives: through an historical standpoint (Solnit, 2000), as a philosophy (Grós, 2011), as a socially engaged practice (Pujol, 2018), as an aesthetic experience (Careri, 2006) or as a spiritual one (Thich Nhat Hanh, 2015), among others. Walking is meditation and mindfulness. Walking is slowness and a way of travelling at a different pace. Walking is a tool for exploration and analysis. Walking is undeniably a natural engine and fuel that nurture our body and mind, a metaphor of our constant tension between standing and moving: one foot on the ground, the other one flying in the air, generating a constant balance between earth and sky, between past and future, between roots and innovation, between where we come from and where we are heading to.”

To recognise the impact of one’s immediate environment and move forward creating paths of change so that we can begin to change the way in which we inhabit a space and recognise how a space impacts our direct and collective experience. Yet to begin the process of change, walking, contemplating and reflecting is pinnacle in effectively evaluating how the space can evolve.

The art of walking, contemplating and growing will continue to be the fundamental methodology within this project. Observing the structures within nature, their connection with our educational environment and how nature reacts to moments of sudden disruption, disturbance and change. Metaphorically viewing our environment and considering ways in which we can embed eco-phenomenology further into our educational environment moving forward past the current pandemic.