A site specific photo installation
“Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” Georgia O’Keeffe
In 2019, I stepped down from running the Théâtre National de Nice, Cote d’Azur and returned to England after 23 years in France. I needed to rediscover my roots and renew my creativity. Now living in East Sussex, I am thrilled to share my first photo installation: “Dancing with Flowers”- inspired by, and created in, the technicolour glory of Great Dixter gardens.
One golden evening, this spring, I found myself stepping through a wooden gate into a shimmering meadow of snake-headed fritillaries and tiny narcissi. It was love at first sight. I had never seen such a wild and wonderful display of flowers and plants – Christopher Lloyd’s unique creation. Today, Dixter continues to be one of the most celebrated and visited gardens in Europe, thanks to the magical hands of Fergus Garrett.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, I walked for countless hours and fell madly in love again with the English countryside. The foliage, sounds and colours, all deeply linked with my youth, evoke within me the beauty of English literature from Shakespeare to DH Lawrence. These last years, I have been searching for new ways of channelling my theatrical creativity into something more intimate, exploring different forms by recording, filming, and photographing my love of nature – all of this coloured with nostalgia and childhood memories.
As a little girl, I loved photography, poetry, and making super 8 films. Today, to my surprise, I can bring together these passions with my iPhone, a tool which suits my need for an immediacy of expression. I like to subvert its intended functions by using it in a deliberately low-tech way. For me, film and photography are, above all, a means to capture memories, a window to the subconscious. The blurrier the image, the closer it is to my artistic right-brain. I do everything to avoid high definition and to embrace the blur! This concept became clearer to me as I started photographing the flowers at Dixter.
I have always been a fan of hand-held camerawork in films. I love Tarkovsky and Godard. And I believe in the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi – a celebration of imperfection and impermanence. Fragility and mistakes can also contribute to the humanity of an image, bringing you closer to the artist. Without a tripod, film and photography tremble imperceptibly with your breath and heartbeat, creating something beautifully, clumsily human.
Trying to get the iPhone to soft-focus, without using a setting or filters, forces me to be very patient. I must be in the same movement and breath as my lovely flower subjects, as they wave in the breeze. I just follow them and try to be ready for the moment to happen. It’s like a little “pas de deux” between us!
There is something so special, even mystical about photographing flowers. I delight in this ephemeral artform. It has made me acutely aware of the brevity of a flower’s life, something I had never thought about before – like that of a butterfly. It reflects my own mortality, with infinite lightness. It is the opposite of a “still life” – there is always such a sense of movement and inner vitality to record. A witness, attempting to capture a fleeting moment in that tiny, perfect life.
I realise now that I have the same instinct with flowers as I have with actors or singers – a desire to help them reveal their inner beauty. It’s what I always enjoy most as a director: bringing out the best in performers and sharing their talents and hearts with an audience. A garden and a theatre have so much more in common than I could ever have imagined.
