Catalogue > At random

It is hard to picture the scale of the iron industry of the Weald today. A large amount of the violence inflicted upon the landscape has healed, only expressing its scars when you know what to look for. However, beginning in the early 16th century, vast quantities of iron were extracted from the area shaping the landscape, the human history and the nonhuman ecosystem to this day. Coppice (2022) is a film rooted in a feeling of psychic dislocation with land. This feeling lead Sam Risley to begin a practise of monthly visits to a small woodland called Cutaway Wood located within the Weald. What began as an attempt at re-enchantment, culminated in a film focused on the industrial history inscribed in the topography of the woodland. Coppice weaves together footage of a year spent watching Cutaway change with the seasons, with sounds captured both above and below the canopy, all the way down into the earth itself. The result is a film poem that conjures the ghosts of the landscape.

Sam Risley works across moving-image, installation, sculpture and written text. His work centres around narratives of renewal, with a focus on ecological restoration within landscapes shaped by violent capitalist practises. Friends, family and mythic or historical figures frequently populate his works. He has exhibited at The Baltic, The Horse Hospital, APT Gallery, Sluice Biennial, IMT Gallery and GAO Gallery among others and has had texts published by Ca-Foscari Press, Da Thirst and Morning Baby.