Born Winged Animals and Honey Gatherers of the Soul

2006
Wardill, Emily
Captured amid the tolling bells of St Anne's Church in Limehouse, London, Emily Wardill's 16mm film alternates vignettes of everyday London life against sudden breaks of complete darkness. The bells ring as an anonymous cityscape flashes by and a woman in a chador sits on a park bench by the river, talking on her mobile phone. In the next sequence, a child plays in a church graveyard. Continuing the pattern, a man works in a telecommunications office and people cross a multi-laned roadway. Employing as a reference point a text by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, 'Born Winged Animals and Honey Gatherers of the Soul' visually evokes Nietzsche's metaphor of the tolling of noon bells as an individual's struggle for self-awareness. Working across film, performance, painting and sound, Emily Wardill uses the ideas of philosophy, theory or science as a starting point for her works. Her films function as visual and aural translations of a philosophical argument or theorem, focussing on human existence in a complex, multi-layered and inexorably urban, contemporary society. Rachel Arndt
  • Artwork Details: running time: 10 minutes
  • Edition: 1 of 5
  • Material description: 16mm film
  • Credit line: © the artist
  • Theme:
  • Medium: Film and Audio Visual
  • Accession number: ACC18/2007

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The Arts Council Collection is the UK's most widely seen collection of modern and contemporary art.

With more than 8,000 works by over 2,000 artists, it can be seen in exhibitions and public displays across the country and beyond. This website offers unprecedented access to the Collection, and information about each work can be found on this site.