WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO CUT THE GRASS? (2020)
Short film
Collaboration with Hsin-Yi Wang
With precise, comedic, performance and a perpetual mechanical soundtrack, When are you going to cut the grass? satirises actions of control in the garden, situated in a world where things aren’t quite what they seem.
Get in touch to view the full film or to request an EPK.
Screenings: Planted group exhibition at Art Walk Porty Hub, Edinburgh, 2021, Edinburgh College of Art Summer Programme, 2020
Coming up: IUCN WCC, Marseille, Sept 2021
**News on screenings at the IUCN World Conservation Congress
Film synopsis
A gardener in a red boiler suit sets to work in a fabricated world which exists simultaneously outside and inside. Powered by a mechanical soundtrack the gardener performs actions of gardening with precision and moments of distortion. As the film develops they take moments to liberate their work and eventually lie down and reflect.
Excerpt from team statement
We are interested in everyday occurrences of ecological destruction in the domestic setting. Furthermore how the acts are powered by the culture of the “perfect household”. When are you going to cut the grass? takes inspiration from the act of mowing the lawn, as an absurd act of slow violence. We are interested in mowing and more broadly, gardening, as performative acts of control.
With this film, we question why are we doing these actions and why can’t we let the garden grow wild? What will that say about us? Will we damage our projection of the perfect neighbour who has everything under control?
Credits
Filmed, edited & directed by Joanne Matthews & Hsin-Yi Wang
Sound design by Nicholas Escobar
Thanks to Yulia Kovanova, Ross Mclean, Donald Urquhart, Russell Galt and Edinburgh Tool Library.
Read a blog by Nicholas Escobar about the making of the soundtrack.