This film is one of five in Bloodlines, the third series of work I’ve made for Living in the Landscape (LiLa); it forms the third part of a film 'trilogy'. This collection of very short films was included in the exhibition Kindred: Living in the Landscape 2025 at the Helgeland Museum in Nesna, Norway in May 2025.

 

Bloodlines refers to the Arctic and northern landscapes which have been impacted by extractivist practices employed by the green energy industries as they industrialise rural land and seas. While these experiences are hyper-local, many are widely shared by communities in different countries and are rooted in exploitation, colonisation, and fostered by extractivism.  

 

The series of films uses collaged images and sounds from nature, the built environment and the industrial landscape in an attempt to share my sense of loss and injury through the disempowerment, damage and displacement caused by energy developments. They particularly reflect my response to the construction of the large scale industrial wind farm built by Viking Energy in Shetland.  

 

Five of the films in this series, and a composite film that brings the individual films together, are featured on cards with QR codes which I have circulated in Nesna, Norway in May 2025. I will share these in Shetland later in 2025.. There is a card for each film. I hope that those who find these cards, initially in Shetland and Nesna, Norway, will feel some kind of kinship as they share the QR cards with friends, family, work colleagues, and so forth..

 

The experience of taking part in LiLa has helped to make sense of our world as we find ourselves in the midst of ongoing processes, often hidden, of colonisation and extinction, of ecocide and genocide. Participation in LiLa has fostered hope through kinship with other participants and has also encouraged me to explore kinship in relation to the human and more than human. How can we can best function as artists in our complex world of interwoven, intergenerational, more-than-human connectivity that calls out for care and responsibility? 

 

This work is supported by VACMA - the Visual Arts and Craft Makers Award from Shetland Arts Development Agency and Creative

 

The following universities took part in Living in the Landscape: University of Lapland, Umeå University, Nord Universitet, University of the Highlands and Islands, and University of the West of Scotland.