Through a module at University where we worked on a live brief, I got to work with Forward Prizes for Poetry. They are a charity committed to widening poetry's audience through promoting the public's enjoyment and understanding of poetry. We were given the finalist's poems, and were able to choose one to animate. I chose Mandala by Tishani Doshi, written in response to the pandemic exploring our perception of time and the hidden vs public parts of ourselves.
I took photos of various plants and bushes and created a kaleidoscope effect on Adobe After Effects, which I then animated to create movement. I then animated on top of this footage in Adobe Photoshop.
'Mandala' by Tishani Doshi
Anyone who believes a leaf is just a leaf is missing
the point. In the attic, there’s a picture of gingko
growing steadily yellow, while the body
of gingko remains evergreen. He works his way
through opium dens and bordellos. I’d like to tell you
not to worry. Reality has a way of sorting itself out,
but panic is infectious. The scare arrives when you’re doing
jumping jacks or organising the cutlery, some moment of low
cosmological drama. Interrupted by the discovery of a lump.
Or the 9 o’clock news. Suddenly, every door handle is a death
sentence. How lonely it must have been for the first astronomers,
freezing on their terraces, trying to catch the light of faraway moons.
Sometimes it’s hard to know whether you’re slowing down
or speeding up. Time’s wobbly trampoline confuses us.
We stitch our days and nights, one to the other,
and it’s like embroidering a galaxy, but even galaxies
recede from one another.