Shuma Wadud

Artist statement
Video art – Childhood memories.
The Flower Field of Dreams and The Yellow Canola Field
Using the park as a vision base to reflect my childhood memories by skipping through fields of flowers. This image is closely related to being in a beautiful natural place with beautiful flowers. Within this memory is the sense of play, freedom and space.
The images are in black and white with a grey grainy filter to give a sense of time and to provide a visual impact to better reflect the image of childhood and time past.
The grainy images give the impression of a hazy memory that takes me back to my childhood of running through the fields and being filmed.
The films are designed to replicate an old film projector to provide a historic feel.
The specific images are replayed in order to capture, strengthen and simplify the message.
A strong component of this is my memories of listening to Bengali music of Ravi Shankar and Panther Panchali. I have chosen instrumental pieces that I feel best reflect the culture and mood.
Another idea was on the sound aspect of the film is to include Bengali poetry. The poetry is spoken without the music to allow the words to have greater resonance.

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video story

From my first video of the Flower Field of Dreams the ideas of the art installation changed significantly before the final version evolved.
The film started as a conventional colour recording with no sound. I started to experiment with visual image and then the sound components.
I started by transforming the image into black and white and then gave it a grainy type texture. This was to reflect age and then I thought I could extend this concept of the past and of history by giving the impression that the film was originally shown on a a film projector. I therefore included the sound of an old film projector.
I then started to think of including my Bengali culture and to enhance the sound element. I thought of music which was so influential in my childhood. So, I added some Bengali music to support the visual images.
I also felt that there could be an additional layer of sound through the spoken word. I thought the most powerful words are those written in poetry. I selected a poem which I then put into the video. I wanted the words to have as much impact as possible so there is an interlude in the music so the words of the poetry are spoken without background music.

Nature Poem
A Kafi by Bishnu Dey
“Forests, trees, rocks and hills give me joy that my mind yearns for.Each tree in the village speaks to me, it tells me, pure! complete!”~Beethoven
My mind too, escapes in late springto the branches of mango and palash treesand relaxes in contentment for a couple of hoursin the young green and middle-aged reds of fields,after all, all men are debtors to the earth.The afternoon, lost in a daydream
stares mutely in the distance,it’s in the past with no effort at all,my distracted thoughts spin in the windand lose themselves in the call of dovesacross deserted village rice-fields.
The evening, blushing with colours,signs itself out on an exhilarating note,in the deep tune of a song. Do you know that I yearn for that songjust like a parched chatak begs for water?