The Society at Black Pond

This program screens for free at UT’s Downtown Gallery.

The Society at Black Pond explores the activity within a common land in the south of England. Previously occupied by the 17th century agrarian socialists The Diggers, the land is currently inhabited by a Natural History Society whose occupations include bat and moth trapping, mycology, tree measuring, and botanical walks.

The exhibition includes three film works that offer a social and natural history of this particular location while exploring more intimately human’s relationship with and within land and nature.

Bosque

2007/2008, 4 Minutes

Rinland has lived near these commons most of her life. In 2007 when she first picked up a Bolex H16, a tool she has since gone on to work with on most of her films, she filmed on this land. Bosque shows her first study of this land in 2007 and 2008 when a significant shift occurred: trees were being felled in exchange for heathland.

Moths Interior

2018, 3 Minutes

Moths Interior shows Paul Wheeler, amateur entomologist and member of Elmbridge Natural History Society, at home dissecting a micro-moth’s genitalia with a microscope he rescued from a local skip. This process is necessary to determine the species.

Black Pond

2018, 43 Minutes

Black Pond is an odyssey through a common land in the south of England told through the hands of the members of the local natural history society. After two years of filming on the land, the footage was shown to the members of the Society. Their memories and responses were recorded and subsequently used as part of the film’s narration.