A Silent War - Rooms by the Sea (I.S.L.)

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Details

Location

Belfast, University of Atypical

Year

2021

Date

Length

02min 32sec

Audio

silent

Format

Digital

colour

Source

Northern Ireland Screen's Digital Film Archive

Courtesy

Hands That Sign, Jane O'Brien, Ross Thompson

Rights Holder

Northern Ireland Screen, Ross Thompson

It is illegal to download, copy, print or otherwise utilise in any other form this material, without written consent from the copyright holder.

Description

Rooms by the Sea by Ross Thompson, written in Bangor during Lockdown 2020

after Edward Hopper 


This inverted space croons like an ocarina
as a cat’s paw sweeps through my careening 


beachside home, suspended, as if by balloons,
past billowing waters and shifting dunes


to the great beyond. Slow days were once infrequent.
Now, it tastes all the more sublime to relinquish


the interminable daily grind and embrace
a more forgiving pace: the incantation of waves,


salt and wind. The interplay of the world without
and the one within would make me a devout 


acolyte if I were not an anchorite 
yet the silken way in which morning light


spreads like sap across the floor’s geometry 
affirms afresh the day’s perfect symmetry. 


Given the choice, I would not trade all of this 
for a free pass to Shangri-La or Atlantis.

Credits

Rooms by the Sea by Ross Thompson

ISL translation and performance by Jane O'Brien

Filmed in University of Atypical by Stuart Calvin

Produced by Sinéad Bhreathnach-Cashell for Northern Ireland Screen

A Silent War Creative Producers: Sinéad Bhreathnach-Cashell & Ann Donnelly

Funded by the Department for Communities through Northern Ireland Screen

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