For young photographers and documentary makers, shooting a time lapse sequence is one of the most boring things you can do, (according to one of the above who I spoke to here). You decide where you want to point the camera, put it on a tripod, set the time frame up, focus, and then the camera does the rest for you by taking a photograph every however many seconds or minutes you want for as many hours as you want.
But for a mother of dwarves who also dabbles in a bit of camera business, the thought of having 3 uninterrupted hours in a high place above a city, watching the sunset, all alone, is one of the biggest luxuries conceivable.
I set myself up on the 'Duke's panorama' which looks north west over Amman, towards the gallery I'm making the film about. The question was, what to do in these precious three hours other than admire the changing view and think my thoughts. I read a bit of book, sipped a bit of water, did a bit of walking about to keep warm. But the best bit, was being able to look from above as the light gradually changed and ebbed, onto a city that has been our home for nearly a year now. There were all the little landmarks we've come to know, from the newly built skyscrapers on the horizon that were our helpful guides when we first arrived, to the central fruit and vegetable market which throngs late into the night. From my viewpoint, I could see the trolleys laden with shining oranges, their colour almost matching the orb of the sun as it dipped below the skyline. And there were the people milling, and talking and squeezing and haggling. Physical distance from people allows you to wonder who they all are. What are their hopes, their fears, their politics? This country whose demographic has changed consistently each decade since its conception in the '20s as it has absorbed Palestinians, then Iraqis, now Syrians - all escaping their own conflicts and beginning again right here in this city. Slowly the headlights and houselights began to pierce the dusk and I thought at the very best, this country could become richer and prouder with this absorption of human potential. At the very worst…I didn't want to think in those terms, as I looked down on this place that has provided J, I and the dwarves with so many happy moments.
In 'A Life of Montaigne' the book I dipped into from the panorama, there are accounts of the brutal civil conflict between Protestants and Catholics that ran roughshod through much of his lifetime in the 1500's. Many of the descriptions are chillingly familiar, and could be superimposed into much of what we're reading about Syria today.
Harking back even further to 415 BC, there is also clear current relevance within Euripdes' work: 'The Trojan Women', based on the suffering of the women of Troy as their city fell, all their men dead, and they awaited their fate. This week, I went to see a startlingly bare production of this, re-enacted by Syrian refugees - their own stories woven with those of Hecuba, Cassandra and Andromache. It's directed by a Syrian and produced by two British - Charlotte and Willie, who originally came up with the concept. As one Syrian cast member explains: 'There is a speech by Hecuba, when she looks on Troy for the last time, that makes me cry. Because when I was crossing the border in Jordan, my husband said, 'Look back at Syria for one last time for you many never see it again.'
I'm sure this http://www.syriatrojanwomen.org will gather momentum. It's too important not to. Both for outsiders' understanding of the blistering dimensions of this conflict; and also for the therapy of self expression, (I'm sure in most cases for the first time on stage), it must give to the women who perform it.
Grayson Perry also reflects the crucial importance of this in his recent Reith Lectures, which I've finally listened to this weekend as the dwarves and I are alone for a few days. After an afternoon gingerbread bake off (we attempted a house but that required more adults, so opted for 'mans and 'snowmans')…
…I won the iPad battle with the Lozenge and listened to Grayson's last lecture as I carved royal icing off kitchen surfaces with a blunt knife and washed up. Most artists hold some form of sadness, he reckons, but art for him, and for many, has been the very key to finding out who they are and what they're made of. As I listened to him talk so candidly, I thought of those brave young Syrian ladies on stage, heads and bodies masked in black, daring to express themselves in public. (Can you imagine the two camps meeting?) And I was moved to imagine the results that might come of an initiative like this one, both on an individual and universal level.
I'm often a little overawed by this world of art, and the depths of some of the people within it, particularly as I make this documentary on the gallery and its influence both nationally and internationally, which is the reason why I was alone on the Duke's panorama in the dark in the first place. But experiencing all these many and diverse things this week, has only made me more certain that even in the most humble sense, I must k.b.o. because all things almost always start tiny.
But for a mother of dwarves who also dabbles in a bit of camera business, the thought of having 3 uninterrupted hours in a high place above a city, watching the sunset, all alone, is one of the biggest luxuries conceivable.
I set myself up on the 'Duke's panorama' which looks north west over Amman, towards the gallery I'm making the film about. The question was, what to do in these precious three hours other than admire the changing view and think my thoughts. I read a bit of book, sipped a bit of water, did a bit of walking about to keep warm. But the best bit, was being able to look from above as the light gradually changed and ebbed, onto a city that has been our home for nearly a year now. There were all the little landmarks we've come to know, from the newly built skyscrapers on the horizon that were our helpful guides when we first arrived, to the central fruit and vegetable market which throngs late into the night. From my viewpoint, I could see the trolleys laden with shining oranges, their colour almost matching the orb of the sun as it dipped below the skyline. And there were the people milling, and talking and squeezing and haggling. Physical distance from people allows you to wonder who they all are. What are their hopes, their fears, their politics? This country whose demographic has changed consistently each decade since its conception in the '20s as it has absorbed Palestinians, then Iraqis, now Syrians - all escaping their own conflicts and beginning again right here in this city. Slowly the headlights and houselights began to pierce the dusk and I thought at the very best, this country could become richer and prouder with this absorption of human potential. At the very worst…I didn't want to think in those terms, as I looked down on this place that has provided J, I and the dwarves with so many happy moments.
In 'A Life of Montaigne' the book I dipped into from the panorama, there are accounts of the brutal civil conflict between Protestants and Catholics that ran roughshod through much of his lifetime in the 1500's. Many of the descriptions are chillingly familiar, and could be superimposed into much of what we're reading about Syria today.
Harking back even further to 415 BC, there is also clear current relevance within Euripdes' work: 'The Trojan Women', based on the suffering of the women of Troy as their city fell, all their men dead, and they awaited their fate. This week, I went to see a startlingly bare production of this, re-enacted by Syrian refugees - their own stories woven with those of Hecuba, Cassandra and Andromache. It's directed by a Syrian and produced by two British - Charlotte and Willie, who originally came up with the concept. As one Syrian cast member explains: 'There is a speech by Hecuba, when she looks on Troy for the last time, that makes me cry. Because when I was crossing the border in Jordan, my husband said, 'Look back at Syria for one last time for you many never see it again.'
I'm sure this http://www.syriatrojanwomen.org will gather momentum. It's too important not to. Both for outsiders' understanding of the blistering dimensions of this conflict; and also for the therapy of self expression, (I'm sure in most cases for the first time on stage), it must give to the women who perform it.
Grayson Perry also reflects the crucial importance of this in his recent Reith Lectures, which I've finally listened to this weekend as the dwarves and I are alone for a few days. After an afternoon gingerbread bake off (we attempted a house but that required more adults, so opted for 'mans and 'snowmans')…
…I won the iPad battle with the Lozenge and listened to Grayson's last lecture as I carved royal icing off kitchen surfaces with a blunt knife and washed up. Most artists hold some form of sadness, he reckons, but art for him, and for many, has been the very key to finding out who they are and what they're made of. As I listened to him talk so candidly, I thought of those brave young Syrian ladies on stage, heads and bodies masked in black, daring to express themselves in public. (Can you imagine the two camps meeting?) And I was moved to imagine the results that might come of an initiative like this one, both on an individual and universal level.
I'm often a little overawed by this world of art, and the depths of some of the people within it, particularly as I make this documentary on the gallery and its influence both nationally and internationally, which is the reason why I was alone on the Duke's panorama in the dark in the first place. But experiencing all these many and diverse things this week, has only made me more certain that even in the most humble sense, I must k.b.o. because all things almost always start tiny.
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