Sunless Haven
2024, UK, 16mm, sound, colour, 30 min
Animating a host of dispersed fragments from historical documents to architectural remnants, Sunless Haven looks at London’s river Thames as a resonant chamber connecting disparate worlds. Woven into the 16mm film are attempts to understand the docklands as a meeting place between different ecologies, enclosures and epochs, as a point of entanglement of the city and world. Moving from the legacy of police persecution of seamen to experiences of London by Ayahs and Amahs, South Asian nannies abandoned in the city to Lao She’s pioneering novel 二馬/Mr Ma and Son first published in 1929. Drawing on the concept of ‘Flowing Water Parallelism’ in Chinese poetry, the film seeks to describe and embody these enmeshed and under documented histories.
The project was developed with historians Simeon Koole and Ben Mechen, sound artist Jol Thoms and performance artist Yarli Allison.
World premiere as Opening Night Film at Open City Documentary Film Festival at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 24 April 2024
Credits:
Image/Sound: George Clark
Music: Jol Thoms
Sound: Jol Thoms & George Clark
Amah Recreations: Yalli Allisan
Historians: Simeon Koole & Ben Mechen
Cast:
Amah: Joy Chao
Limehouse resident: Yarli Allisan
Priest: George Clark
Dockworker: Jol Thoms
Texts:
‘伦敦大雾行 / The Ballad of the Great London Fog’, Huang Zunxian, c.1890-92,
translated by Zhiyi Yang
Common Lodging Houses and Seamen’s Lodging Houses. Register of Police Court Proceedings, 1895-1914, London Metropolitan Archives
Depositions by William Richard Gillard, son of deceased William Gillard and Dr
Thomas Massie, Medical Officer of Workhouse, Mint Street, Borough, Southwark Coroner’s Court, 27th August 1908
Letter from Gerald Fitzgerald, India Office referred to the Public Department, 26 July 1890
Letter from the Strangers Home for Asiatics to Gerald Fitzgerald, India Office, 26 January 1891
Letter from Tomas May to Directors of The Grand Surrey Canal Company, 13
February 1869
‘二馬 / Mr. Ma and Son,’ Lao She, 1929, translated by William Dolby
Filmed on 16mm Fujifilm and Kodak stock in London 2023-24
Film Processing: Color by DeJonghe & Kodak Film Lab London
Commissioned by Simeon Koole & Ben Mechen as part of Within Worlds project supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/W000059/1)
Additional support: CREAM University of Westminster.
Thanks to: Eiko Soga, May Adadol Ingawanij, Neal White, Ben Cook