Day in Day out

Day in Day out (2024)
16mm film,10 mins, filmed with a Bolex on 16mm film stock ISO 12, hand processed in caffenol.

This film was fully edited during the filming process by rewinding the 16mm film inside the Bolex and double-exposing it. There was no script; all I intended to capture was the liminal and layered histories of this place, in relation to its geological materiality.

Day in Day out still, 2025

Research

My location was Portland in Dorset, from which strata has been taken out of its geological matrix for hundreds of years.

Portland Stone has been taken out of the ground and lifted with these chains off the island onto boats that aided, for example, in rebuilding St Paul’s after the Great Fire of London.

This extraction of strata was, of course, a long time ago, but to this day, Portland stone is quarried underground and transported worldwide. Coming to a place like this, a disused open-pit quarry, has a tangible past, and I have been seduced by this industrial ruin from the moment I first visited it over 30 years ago.

Stepping aside from this romantic comfort, I have woken up to the fact that the extraction of strata is constant and current. Worldwide, under harmful conditions, exploitation and mineral extraction are sustained by colonial and hierarchical structures (Yusoff, 2024) [1] .
I asked this place for permission to capture something of its past.
Prioritising embodied sensing, I held the Bolex camera to my chest, moving my body whilst filming. Maintaining a connection with this mineral-rich place and its history, while considering the silver halide crystals, gelatin, and plastic that archived the light within its photochemical emulsion.