myth, moth, mother
2024
Video / 17:10’’
myth, moth, mother is a short-film that speaks to us through a moth that has learned our language. It offers a glimpse into the moth's forms, dreams, and transformations. The film invites us to dissolve with the narrator, who regresses to our non-human origins to examine what makes us alike. From the micro to the macro, the film speculatively aspires to reframe darkness, difference, and revolution as spaces of illumination and re-emergence.
The film explores the concepts of darkness and metamorphosis through research on myths and moths, challenging conventional perceptions and proposing alternative ways of understanding our relationship with nature and change. Situated against a culture fixated on progress and clarity - primarily advanced by the Western episteme - 'myth, moth, mother' dives into the theme of darkness, and questions its position as a negative realm where humans merely sleep and fear the unknown. Rejecting this framing, Solís Bravo focuses on nocturnal creatures to lead us to an unlit but insightful zone for reconsidering our place in nature and the rules that govern the formation of our knowledge paradigms, so often set up against a mutual relationality with the world; an imaginary space where humans can coexist harmoniously with other species, fostering equality among diverse life forms by embracing a become with them.
Shot in the Peruvian Amazon, the film elucidates the dim landscape of moths as a vehicle for transformation. Solís Bravo utilizes several image-making technologies related to science in the making of this film that add depth to the possibilities of a digital camera: An electron microscope, a thermal camera, camera traps and Micro CT-Scanners. All this to further access the unseen.
Credits:
Sound and music design: Thessa Torsing a.k.a upsammy
3D imagery: Paula Garcia Sans
Thermal footage: Daniel Echecopar
Night audio recordings: Luce Roux
Camera trap footage: Lorena Solís Bravo
Electron Microscopy and Micro CT scans done in collaboration with Naturalis Research Centre
Financed by: Mondriaan Fonds
Filmed at Tambopata Research Center, Perú
concept, filmed & written by Lorena Solís Bravo
Photographs: Fabian Landewee
If you are interested in watching the film please write me an email to solisbravolorena@gmail.com