Leviathan Cycle, Episode 1: Ben, 2017
HD video, 12'52"
Commissioned by University of Salford Art Collection, Outset Contemporary Art Fund and Leviathan – Human & Marine Ecology, with support from The Contemporary Art Society. Courtesy of the artist and UBIK Productions.
Still from Leviathan Cycle, Episode 1: Ben, 2017.
Still from Leviathan Cycle, Episode 1: Ben, 2017.
Still from Leviathan Cycle, Episode 1: Ben, 2017.
Leviathan Cycle is a multi-episode film series, and part of Shezad Dawood’s groundbreaking multimedia Leviathan project, exploring the intersection of climate change, migration and mental health. Each film has been crafted as a self-contained work blending fictional narrative and documentary footage, with the possibility of being endlessly reconfigured with other episodes to create distinctive storylines extending from the evolving corpus of Leviathan material.
The pilot episode provides the backstory to the narrative: a solar cataclysm that has wiped out a large part of the human population. Ben reminisces about his childhood spent roaming the back corridors of the Natural History Museum in London (that contain, amongst other marvels, Darwin’s original specimen jars from the Beagle expedition) and his fascination with the Giant Squid preserved in the Marine Research labs.