the waves and the mantram, 2022

A nurse lives on an island on the easternmost edge of the United States, committed to the growth of his family, his community and himself. He offers up a glimpse from memory, in faith, in doubt.

He glances into, around and against himself, and is measured in between the scarcely documented narratives and perspectives that have formed him—between the sacred and profane, between inner-life and social responsibility, between the religious and the spiritual. Alongside him, there are glimpses through contained spaces and reflective landscapes—of images, sounds, gestures, slivers of meaning, bodies, wind, water, witnesses—all circling the innermost, all-too-human.

'The waves and the mantram, part 1' is the first in a trilogy of cinematic triptychs that thread together varied narratives, accounts, images, poems and documents of belief and spirituality; and the environments that surround, impact, and inform those beliefs. It is a slate, an elastic model of being, where semi-narrative associations arise and dissolve, entwined by poetic dissonance and affinity.

Exhibited at Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival 2023 in Scotland, and the Experimental Film & Video 2023 Exhibition at the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA) Museum in South Korea.