blue moon (2023)

Joanna Byrne, 3 mins, cyanotypes on recycled 16mm filmstock made with foraged wild plants, grasses and Northern sunlight.

A camera-less 16mm film inspired by the Blue Supermoon at Saltburn-by-the-Sea on 30 August 2023. Working in collaboration with foraged local grasses and wild plants, I contact printed the organic material directly onto the surface of recycled 16mm filmstrips coated with hand-made cyanotype chemistry.

After exposure in Northern sunlight, the filmstrips were developed by washing in water. The film material was spliced together by hand to create a 3 minute film. To evoke the idea of the Full Moon, I experimented with a circular frame mask in the projector gate. I was thinking about the Moon’s immense power over the Earth’s oceans – her illusion of stillness, her repetitive cycle in perpetual motion.

EXHIBITION

2024

SCAF Emerging Journeys, 29 November-29 December, Northallerton [group exhibition].

On Queerness + Ecology, London, 27-30 September [group exhibition]

Repetition: PC24, PHOTO-CANOPY, Burton-on-Trent, July [group exhibition]

Animating Hexham, Hexham, 9-11 February [group exhibition]