A 2018 filmpoem by poet, filmmaker and scholar of poetry film Susannah Ramsay. She calls it
An experimental filmpoem about side-stepping death. The style of filmmaking was inspired by the Materialist/Structural elements of Peter Gidal’s experimental film, Key (1968).
Poet and director Susannah Ramsay‘s description reads:
West of Dalabrog refers to the relationship between place, landscape, memory and subjective experience. It focuses on the return to a place of personal importance – a long stretch of white sand to the west of the town of Dalabrog, South Uist, which I first visited in 2001. The return represents a shift in perception and reflects how time can bear great change on a place, landscape and more crucially memory.
This filmpoem by Susannah Ramsay is featured in the latest issue of Poetry Film Live along with another of her films and a short essay, “Filmpoetry and Phenomenology.” According to her bio there, Ramsey’s
practice-based research, Experiencing the Filmpoem. A Phenomenological Exploration, argues that phenomenology, both as a philosophy and film theory can undergird our understanding of the filmpoem, a unique composition of artists’ moving image. Through the production and exhibition of her own filmpoetry, her work aims to explore how this medium can provide a sensorial embodied experience within either a site-specific gallery space or a traditional screening context. Susannah’s practice concerns the tradition of filming in close proximity to nature and explores how we can emotionally and philosophically connect to the landscape. As part of her RSPB artist residency she is creating an outdoor audiovisual installation, to be screened in the landscape of Loch Lomond nature reserve.
For more, visit Poetry Film Live.