Ngland

February 2019

16mm cine film, 4’40”

…Man has placed his most valuable possession in the world of temporal affairs, namely his continuity in time, beyond the limits set by human existence in either direction, entirely in the hands of the state. And yet it is just in this very period when the nation stands alone and supreme that we have witnessed its sudden and extraordinarily rapid decomposition. This has left us stunned, so that we find it extremely difficult to think clearly on the subject.

(Simone Weil, Roots, p.97, 1949)

This short film is a companion work to A Profound Difference. It presents a visual meditation on the political events and social environment that has arisen due to, and since, the UK Referendum on EU Membership, on the 23rd June 2016. The film centres on an England flag, flown in the garden of a suburban house in the Midlands, England.

To fly the England flag in a time of relative political stability might pronounce a sense of belonging and claim to a specific (if mythic) and exclusive national identity. To fly the English flag during the tortuous process of the UK's extraction from the EU, and the widespread xenophobia promoted by factions of the Leave Campaign, suggests an assertion of intolerance towards Others and a wish to exclude those who are perceived as not originating from the “home” nation. In so doing, it seems like an act of aggression.

Ngland consists of an entire reel of 16mm cine film, with no cuts or edits. The film has been hand-processed and is presented with all the faults, glitches and mistakes of the process of making. The film was made with the camera in a fixed position with a change in the frame rate to suggest a sense of misplaced elegance in the slow-motion footage, against erratic action and confusion in the fast motion sections as the flag becomes tangled on the pole that supports it. The legend “ENGLAND” never quite reveals itself in full, with the “E” remaining partially concealed throughout.