Seedtime, 2020. Single-channel HD video with sound. 12 min 39 sec. Installation view at the Headlands Center for the Arts (2020) and stills. Photography by Connie Zheng and Ben Elie. Documentation by Connie Zheng.
Seedtime is the second installment of an ongoing, three-part experimental film project about speculative seeds, informal and collectively produced knowledge, and divergent articulations of hope amidst ongoing environmental apocalypse. Seedtime builds on the narrative begun by The Lonely Age by following a small community of seed-searchers as they navigate between hope, denial and collective wishing amidst cascading disasters and through the frame of seed-time — the time of subterranean and invisible transformation amidst what can appear to be a hibernative state. Like The Lonely Age, Seedtime draws upon improvised voiceovers and movement to build out its narrative, and was originally conceived of as an exercise in practicing the act of refusing apocalyptic thinking through collective myth-making.
Seedtime was filmed in early 2020, right before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.
Credits
Director: Connie Zheng
Assistant director: Sharon Shao
Original story: Connie Zheng
Producer: Connie Zheng
Photography: Ben Elie, Connie Zheng
Editing: Connie Zheng
Effects and animation: Connie Zheng
Costuming & Props: Connie Zheng
Original music: Joyous Dawn, Future Krac, Perfect Geisha
Featured original tracks: “With our minds” by Joyous Dawn, “Quaaludes” by Future Krac, electric organ by Kylie Nguyen
Lighting & on-set audio: Nima Khazaei
Sound mixing: Evan Karp
Performers:
Evan Karp, Fafi, Jane Eisner, Julia Kerley, Justin Carder, Kristi Chan, Kylie Nguyen, Mallika Nair, Nima Khazaei, Rohan DaCosta, Sophia Schultz Rocha, Sharon Shao
Voices:
Abe Becker, Angela Willetts, Ariela Putterman, Beatriz Escobar, Chenxia Liu, Christine Cho, Connie Zheng, Daniel J Glendening, Daniel McCormick, Danielle Wright, Emily Bornhop, Erika Lutz, Judit Navratil, Kannan Goundan, Kira Dominguez Hultgren, Livien Yin, Liz Roberts, Mary O'Brien, Maw Shein Win, Michelle Lin, Nancy Sayavong, Rohan DaCosta, Vincent Chu, Zach Epstein
With generous support from: Headlands Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, ACRE Residency, Art Practice department of UC Berkeley