signs | cyanotype animation by Claire Kinnen

"signs" is a short videopoem that briefly explores the idea of longing and connection in a rapidly changing world. During the past few years, the pandemic has emphasized the physical distance I am from many of the people I love, while rooting me at home in Queens. My fire escape, already a space often coopted by New Yorkers as an unauthorized outdoor space, became a vantage point from which I was able to safely observe the world around me. This poem briefly explores love for place and the dissonance of separation from people we love in a local and global sense. I filmed the images using my mobile phone and digitally stitched in the footage of a butterfly. I then exported the footage as individual frames and exposed cyanotypes of the frames on the roof and fire escape of my apartment. I rinsed them in my bathtub. I scanned the images to recreate them as a cyanotype animation frame by frame. WORLDTHREADING Film Fest (Denmark 2023) Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival (New Zealand 2023) MicroActs Artist Film Screening (United Kingdom 2023) 11th Ó Bhéal Poetry Film Competition (Ireland 2023) International Moving Film Festival Semi-Finalist (Iran 2024) Encuentro Internacional de Cineastas (México 2024)