La Fogata Medusa

Something that drew my attention as soon as we got to Playa Docas were the many piles of thick rubbery strands of seaweed.  I immediately began thinking of plaits and their symbolism and as Emma and James played beach tennis I began plaiting one bundle.  The resulting ‘wig’ of seaweed became a fun dressing up prop and as dusk settled over the beach we each took turns in wearing “Medusa”.  Spinning around so the plaits swing out to the sides was brilliant fun!

Having spent an evening under the stars we re-kindled our fire the next morning for tea and after breakfast I dressed the fire with the plaits and the three of us played around awakening this creature, La Fogata Medusa, through a stop-motion animation shoot.

At the start of the shoot I was thinking about creativity, and the need to find a balance between consuming and creating.  Over the course of the shoot the collaboration between the three in combination with the mixture of materials found in the beach  that became props introduced other ideas too, around nature and man-made, health and contamination.  It was an apt follow on to the conversation of the previous night where we’d been discussing how the widespread disconnect from nature is one significant factor in many of the worlds current issues.

So apparently it seems plaits might be emerging as the next recurring symbol in my work…hmm I wonder how might I make a patchwork puzzle plait? ??

Have a look at a later dated post for the stop-motion clip: here.

:-)