A Place for Penguins – Tom Parry (2018)
As part of my film-fest group I set up amongst some friends, we have gone to wildlife, conservation and nature talks, screenings and films. I found out about Wilderland Film Festival and knew that the group would be keen. This is where I first watched A Place for Penguins, it is also accessible on Vimeo.
Within this short film, Tom Parry explores the relationship between a penguin conservationist, Christina Hagen, and fine art sculptor, Roelf Darling. The South African Penguin’s population has dropped by 99% with the threat of extinction within the next ten years. Using the interface of science and art, Darling creates penguin sculptures to be used within the workspace of science to trick the penguins into seeing the decoys and relocating, creating a new colony fifty miles up the coast where there is an ample food source. This film shows how science and art are not two distinct disciplines, rather they are different methods of understanding the world and expressing research. Darling pushes his work beyond the scope of aesthetics and takes it beyond the gallery space to actively participate in the environment. Conceptual art allows artists to exceed the parameters of traditional art to join scientific, political, cultural and societal discourse. ‘Sculpture loaded with concept, ideas and meaning.’
Though watching A Place for Penguins, I began to get so excited about the collaboration between science and art. This film combined all three of my interests; Science, Art and Filmmaking. Often people say these cannot work in unison, but this film disproves them all! A Place for Penguins inspired my dissertation line of enquiry. I'm focusing my dissertation on the interdisciplinary collaboration efforts between climatologists and artists, the presentation of climate conscious practices in gallery spaces and activist art directly participating within criticised institutions. My working title is ‘Should Environmental Art explain and visually convey climatological data, to engage and incentivise action in relation to anthropogenic climate change?’. I'm looking into the ever-increasing eco-consciousness within the varying disciplines of art, science, economics and politics enabling the climate crisis to be tackled through interdisciplinary combined efforts.
‘It means so much more to me than putting something up in a gallery space.’
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