The Weight Of Things | Film Screening

A 19th century etching of the bedroom in the Palace of Versailles, is animated and depicting the room in the midst of an earthquake. Every detail, from the mouldings to the small figures in the hung paintings, tremble. Eventually all the elements: objects, furniture, decorative features fall and pile up on the rooms floor. The once crowded walls will be left with only a few lines signifying the bare walls. As the objects fall and break, their initial significance is questioned. The once strong, solid, symbols of power and glorification fall and break to useless shreds on the floor. Then comes the stillness, the uncluttered space is now a clear, even peaceful, landscape. Versailles is not only a French symbol, but a universal symbol of power, control and self aggrandizement through materialism. The Weight of Things implies that all of these objects carry the weight of their origins and the destruction of all that stood in the way of the process of acquiring them. The work lays bare the fragility of the earth, it’s human inhabitants and the systems that we create and maintain that reinforce the accumulation of wealth and power. Often, we sacrifice the earth for these things and the earth will someday reclaim all that we have taken from it.

Film by Dana Levy
Presented by Replika Publishing
Duration 2 minutes and 48 seconds
2019