Silver Threads | Film Screening

Silver Threads, 2020 Single-channel video, colour, sound 1 min 27 sec 1920 × 1080, 16:9 (.MOV) Edition of 5 + 1 AP

In this video performance, the creation of silver threads unfolds as a ritual, an act of quiet alchemy where body, material, and gesture converge.

Handcrafted from fine silver, the threads move across bare skin with a deliberate intimacy, tracing ephemeral marks that speak not only of touch, but of memory and time inscribed onto the body. They do not adorn, they become a second skin.

Drawing from my background in filmmaking and visual anthropology, the work approaches the body as both site and vessel, embedded within histories, mythologies, and ancestral echoes. The camera does not observe from a distance but enters the ritual, moving with the performers, attuned to breath, texture, and light. The video becomes an extension of the performance itself: not a document, but a continuation of the act.

A soundscape I composed accompanies the piece, evoking a fluid, immersive environment, at times reminiscent of water, at others of a distant, siren-like call. Sound and image intertwine, guiding the viewer through a space where perception softens and the boundaries between inner and outer worlds dissolve.

As two women move in proximity, their gestures unfold in a shared choreography of offering and exchange. The silver threads pass between them, binding and releasing, resisting and yielding, becoming a conduit through which transformation occurs. The object itself is not static; it shifts, responds, and participates. It is both enchanted and enchanting.

Echoing ritual practices and mythic narratives, the threads take on symbolic resonance: a crown, a veil, a trace of something ancient and unspoken. They shimmer like a living archive, holding within them stories of the body, of land, of memory with the alchemy of silver making.

Goldsmiths artist Ying Li (RCA) and Greta, a dancer, collaborated in front of my camera—the three of us united through sound and movement.

This work inhabits a threshold space, between presence and disappearance, material and immaterial, self and other. It is a gesture of becoming, where the act of immersion reveals what lies beneath the surface, and where transformation is not fixed, but continuously unfolding.

Directed, filmed and soundscape by Vicky Polak
Edited by Alec Gordon Conceptual jewellery by Yilin Wang
Performed by Greta Dite and Yilin Wang
Produced at Auch Studio, London, UK
Presented by The Light Gallery
Duration 1 minute 29 seconds
2020