Interview with Vincent Parisi & Samantha Haworth - Metamorphosis

Interview with Vincent Parisi & Samantha Haworth - Metamorphosis

What is your personal relationship with the natural world?

S: For me, nature has always been an escape. There’s something incredibly calming and humbling about being surrounded by nature, and it’s where I go if I need some perspective in my life or if I need cheering up.  It has a way of both putting my own struggles in perspective, while also reminding me that we’re all part of something bigger, that we’re part of this incredible ecological web. 

V: This is difficult to answer. The vast and all-encompassing essence of nature makes me feel that I often perceive things through a narrow lens. Nevertheless, my relationship is rooted in direct experience and I have been lucky enough several times to feel a sense of spiritual emancipation and creative wonderment simply by being within incredible ecosystems.

 

 

What kind of mood do you intend to set with this work? 

V: I feel like for a start, it’s more a journey in which different moods are evoked through different images perhaps. In the original context of the series, we looked to create a visual journey and a distinct narrative. In that sense we feel that there were different moods emphasised at different points within the narrative. 

S: At the same time though, I feel like overall there’s a feeling of reverence and harmony, and being a part of something as incredible as nature.

V: In a number of the images we really tried to capture a grandiose vision of nature in which, us as the subjects are very much in a reverential position in relationship with the landscape around us.

 

Two people - one photo. How would you describe working in collaboration with one another?

V: Pretty seamless I suppose!

S: It was wonderful actually, we seem to work really well together as a team, and while we have similar ways of viewing the world, there are always differences. It challenged both of us to alter our creative practices and to incorporate both of our ways of seeing the world. We would be bouncing things off one another, building on each others ideas and by the end it was this lovely amalgamation of both of our viewpoints. 

V: I feel like our personal relationship really underlined our working process and impacted on the atmosphere of some of the images. Some of these images were taken when we were travelling on holidays, and others when we would have a couple of days off work. In a way, some of the creation process was organic, as we became inspired by different environments and created images around those landscapes. In another way it was structured, we had a clear idea of the story that the images were to tell with purposeful concept sketches and arrangement. 

 

 

 How do you want people to respond to Children of the Sylvan Wood? 

V: I just want people to connect on some level; to be inspired, moved or positively impacted.

S: I think, everyone will have a slightly different experience from the images depending on their own viewpoint and background. I hope it triggers some sense of interconnectedness with each other and the natural world, and hopefully a space where people can experience and explore emotions we don’t always let into our busy lives. 

 Interview by Caitlyn Hurley & Nate Warburton

 

Unity - Dates and Times

16th May 2018 - 26th May 2018
Opening Event - May 18th 6pm-8pm

Wednesday - Friday 11:00am - 5:00pm
Saturday - 11:00am - 3:00pm