Sarah Beare
This animation was made to promote the launch of a new Master's degree course in Interdisciplinary Japanese Studies at UEA in Norwich, summer of 2020. It shows the folding up of an origami canary, which is very appropriate to Norwich. A simple soundtrack using clips of canary bird song and paper folding sounds adds a gentle ambience.
'Playing in Time' below, was made for the 'unearthed' exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in 2010. This ground-breaking exhibition displayed ancient figurines from Japan and the Balkans in the same cases, and investigated the eternal themes of miniatures and human creativity from ancient times right up to the present day. The idea here was that the figures shown invite the viewers in deeper to the exhibition, past contemporary work, going further back in time and invited them to identify with the ancient peoples who had made them. We made the puppets for this with rubber and wire armatures, and the background is sand drawn animations based on the designs of Jomon 'flame' pots of ancient Japan, made by the same culture that made the figurines. (The soundtrack is made using clips of sounds that I imagine the Jomon people would have been familiar with.)
'Skip of a Lifetime' Everything shown here was found in a skip. The old man, Mr Bernard Remmington, had lived at 44 Knowsley Road in Norwich for decades. I met and chatted with him a couple of times, and liked him. What didn't go to the charity shops when his kids emptied the house went in a skip and then quite a lot of that came home with me. (It was a bit like Bernard had moved in for a while, the huge pile of stuff in my front room.) Anyway, the things he left behind showed that he'd worked in three major Norwich businesses (Jarrolds Print Works, HMSO and Colman's Mustard) and that he was creative and loving family man. Bless him. Much of this stuff I have passed on now but I still have quite a bit of it. One thing is pretty much certain - I doubt I will ever find a skip like this again! (No soundtrack)
My friend's simply beautiful greenhouse being built in her lovely garden in South Norfolk, during one week of very changeable weather! I set the camera and tripod up but my friend took most of the photos, after the first day, and then I put the animation together using Adobe Photoshop's animation facility. (No soundtrack)
'This Mantled' is just a bunch of crazy stuff going up on my wall and coming down again, all by itself. I invited people in to view this collection while it was up and got a great response, especially from Colin, aged four, who came twice and told his dad 'It was so interesting it blew my head off!' which is about as high an accolade as I could have hoped for. (No soundtrack)
