Kayla Parker

Flow

Film poem created with the wild flowers that grow along the shore of the Laira estuary, the tidal mouth of the River Plym, on the southwest coast of Britain. The petals and leaves stream past as the haunting soundscape ebbs and flows.

Sodium Drift

A mesmeric nighttime car journey.

Measure

Views of a landscape engraved directly into the emulsion of 16mm film leader using the blade of a surgical scalpel. The length of each filmstrip is determined by the distance between points on the artist’s body, such as from fingertip to fingertip between outstretched arms, and bisecting the body along a posterior/anterior axis. During our experience of these moving images, the length of a strip of film becomes a measurement of time as the static marks incised into the black 16mm frames are perceived to be lines of light in motion.

On Location

A hybrid form of landscape cinema capturing the year of an unnamed hollow way that forms the stream bed for several springs in a remote area of rural mid-Devon, Britain. Made in collaboration with the cinematographer and sound recordist Stuart Moore, the film takes time to notice the human and non-human traces of change along the sunken lane.

Maelstrom

Cinematic memories of long-forgotten arrivals and departures ‘projected’ onto mysterious upwellings and whirlpools to conjure the confluence of histories at Devil’s Point, the rocky promontory on the westernmost edge of Plymouth, where the swirling waters of the River Tamar pour through the narrow gap between Devon and Cornwall to meet the salty tides of Plymouth Sound, its topography producing riptides, strange turbulent waters and unique meteorological conditions.

Flora

Transient plant forms collected during a walk around Plymouth on a sunny spring afternoon: buttercup petals, wild garlic and cranesbill flowers, forget-me-not florets and the seeds blown from a dandelion clock, pressed onto clear 35mm film and accompanied by a field recording of a hundred cheeping sparrows huddled in a wall of ivy.

Glass

This practice-as-research mediates Luce Irigaray’s writing about the ‘feminine’ through close examination and ‘play’ with glass fragments found among the sand, pebbles, bladder wrack, and briny debris on Stonehouse Pool beach, Plymouth. Gathered intuitively, these objects are smoothed by the movements of the sea. Uncovered by the waves at low tide, the salty lozenges shine blue-white milk of magnesia, warm whey, pale colostrum, moss, strawberry juice, amber toffee, and clear hyacinth, in the low winter sunlight.

Sunset Strip

A day-by-day animated diary of a year's sunsets, recorded directly onto a continuous strip of 35mm film using a variety of materials such as magnolia petals, net stocking, lacquer and ink, to create a dazzling expression of the visual music revealed by 365 setting suns.

Cage of Flame

A bewitching celebration of menstruation which uses a variety of animation techniques from pixilation to scratch on film. An antidote to the vacuous sanitised view of menstruation promoted by advertising. A dream life of angels. What wings really mean. The wise wound and its belly music. Desire is vulvic and creativity claims the calendar of bodies.

Unknown Woman

A woman’s psychological journey which externalises an inner world filled with suspense and pursuit. Animated ink and wax drawings are inter-cut with pixilated sequences originating from dreams of a woman and a crow. The structured footage is then painted, and edited to a composed soundtrack. – K.P.