- Hi, I'm Saskia and I'm with Voice Mag
and I'm here with Epoh Beech.
Hi Epoh.
- Hi Saskia.
- Would you like to introduce yourself
and tell us a bit about your project?
- Yes of course.
I'm Epoh Beech and my project
is "The Masque of Blackness,"
have been working on it
for quite a long time.
And it's exploring the relationship
between rivers and the imagination.
So it's yeah, it's all done in charcoal
and all completed in London.
- Why did you choose charcoal
as a medium to do your drawings?
- I chose charcoal as a
medium to do the drawings
because it's very flexible
and it has a wonderful quality
when you draw and rub out
of leaving a trace of what's been before.
And that's something
that really interests me,
is the relationship between time,
between still images and moving images
and that relationship
between time and rivers
and moonlight and how that can help
the viewer access their unconscious
and project their own
relationship with the images.
- That's really great.
I read that your film was inspired by
Johnson's and Conrad's place.
Why Johnson and Conrad?
- I read Jonson's "Masque of Blackness,"
having previously worked
on an animation called
"The Marriage of the
Thames and the Rhine,"
which is also a Jacobean Masque
written by Francis Beaumont.
I was just hooked by
Johnson's particular reference
to the Niger River speaking
to the moon and the ocean.
And I just thought that
was very beautiful.
Then thought about the
relationship between the terms
and West African rivers
and heart of darkness
and that is narrated from
the Thames at Gravesend,
about a West African river,
one presumes the Congo
and it's an exploration inwards,
a journey into one's imagination.
- And you're also interested
in mythology as well,
aren't you?
- I'm very interested mythology, yes.
And the connection between
mythology and dreams
and Pegasus in my animation
is a symbol of justice
and wisdom and also poetic truth
and I find that very beautiful.
- So what can people expect
from the "Masque of Blackness,"
the film that you've done?
- Well, it's a moving drawing,
it's neither an animation
really or a traditional sense.
So I basically kept a sketchbook
and the drawings that repeated themselves,
I then used that as a way of
connecting to the animation.
So it's a poetic stream
of consciousness in a way
and a moving drawing
about rivers and moonlight
and spirit of place and how we need
to look after our rivers and protect them.
- Yeah I saw a clip of your
first screening and it looked,
your drawings are beautiful
and I can't wait to see the whole thing.
- Well, thank you very much.
And so this is gonna be the first time
it's seen in full online so I'm very happy
that it's with Totally Thames 2020.
- Okay, well, thank you very much Epoh
for sitting down with me
and the "Masque of
Blackness" is gonna be online
on the September 1st.
