Fugium I (Retreats) 2023 and part also in progress
Fugium gives rise to the concept of flight and refuge, and Fugium I is divided into three sections as is Fugium II. Each section in Fugium I uses the name of a prominent woman from a particular period in the communities history as well as being structured around a simple fibonacci series of units.
The initial modern community appears to be Benedictine community of women that located a cloister around four rivers (Piloña, Valle, Color and Pequino or Cueva)at around 1000 AD. This use of rivers, in itself can be seen to reflects the four rivers of the earthly Paradise in Bosch’s painting of that name in the Prado Madrid (ie Genesis 2) and the concept of the Cloister can often be related to the concept of Eden When the last Abbess was moved from the cloister to Oviedo in the C16th the religious community changed radically and with it many of the buildings and the social inter-relationships would have suffered. This refuge was then in part destroyed by Time, Napoleon and modern roadworks of the C20th.
The second section reflects the growth of ‘new money’ in th early C20th and with it new gardens that also had a designed inter-visability element that meant various garden spaces could be not only seen by others gardens but also those in the public spaces in between. The tranquility of these gardens also failed due to the noise of the roads and industry as well as economic and political circumstances.
The last section reflects on the current use of the village where people turn both inward and become commuters who are subject to the pressures of consumerism and the dreams that are brought about to sell that dream especially though new technologies and media
Both Fugium I and Fugium II have 20 minute non dialogue digital experimental filmworks that have been selected for various International film festivals. The works on paper are works ongoing.
Fugium II (seeking a paradise in the crack of a skin) 2023 and parts on paper in progress
Fugium II is about the actual overall flight from one space to another (along the River Pequino) searching for another paradise in the deserted interior of the Cantabrian Mountians. The sections ‘Labyrinth’, ‘Watch place of the wolf’ (both in reality and the Dante’s association of the wolf as never being satisfied), ‘Xana’s singing place’ (again a reality and the association with the ‘Celtic’ mythological being in the uncertainty of the dark wood) and ‘Leopard light’ (again linking to the Leopard in Dantes inferno and the sense of a space never really revealing itself).
