Hart of the Wood ‘Ways of the Plant'
Synopsis
Hart of the Wood 'Ways of the Plant', is a bold multidisciplinary art and film project, led by artist and filmmaker Benjamin Wigley, which celebrates humanity's ingrained relationship with the woods that spans deep time; carbon, the Carboniferous and the journey of coal. Working collaboratively with the Hart of the Wood artist collective, Ben responded to the Lapworth’s extensive Carboniferous fossil collection to create a new multi-modal film and art exhibition at the Lapworth Museum of Geology; on display throughout 2023
Details
- Year
- 2024
- Type of project
- Shorts
- Running time
- 30 min
- Format
- 16mm
- Director
-
Benjamin Wigley
- Editor
- Benjamin Wigley
- Director of Photography
- Benjamin Wigley
- Composer
- Nathaniel Mann
- Principal cast
- Stephen Jon Cooper, Martin Sommerville, Luke and Nat Perry, Happy, Graham Worton
- Other Lead Creative(s)
- Nathaniel Mann, Stephen Jon Cooper, Martin Sommerville, Mary Keith and the Fossil Choir, Luke Perry, Jonathan Clatworthy
- Project Notes
- The Hart of the Wood Collective, is a group of multidisciplinary artists and collaborators, led by Benjamin Wigley, Nathaniel Mann, Stephen Jon Cooper, Martin Sommerville and Mary Keith, with various shifting specialisms in the visual, sonic & performative arts. The HOTW Collective also create alongside a range of other artists, scientists, thinkers and makers.
Production Status
Production Company
Art Docs Ltd
Benjamin Wigley43 Leahurst Road
Nottingham
NG2 6GL
Sales Company
Art Docs Ltd
Benjamin Wigley43 Leahurst Road
Nottingham
NG2 6GL
Page updates
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See also
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SPIKA: Sowing Teeth
Director: Benjamin Wigley
Year: 2025
Beneath the polished floors of the Triennale di Milano, the ground begins to stir - an awakening of memory and matter. Plant, prion, soil, microbe… a fissure appears, first noticed by the cleaners. What starts as a subtle disturbance evolves into SPIKA, a strange ecological disruption that hungers for further disruption. This short film imagines a world overtaken by symbiotic life- plants and proliferating microbes that spread across the city, energised by SPIKA. The sculpture reimagines urban sustainability through Microbial Hydroponics (Mi-Hy), integrating hydroponics with microbial fuel cells to promote symbiotic relationships between plants and microbes. SPIKA becomes a prosthetic rhizosphere, transforming household waste into natural fertilisers. It challenges architecture’s legacy of ecological disruption and proposes an alternative: a closed-loop, living architectural core that turns buildings into metabolic hubs for the city. The film was created using 16mm celluloid, various film stocks, and plant-based hand development rituals to evoke the organic essence of SPIKA. It responds to the sculptural installation exhibited at the 2025 Triennale di Milano, and draws on a fictional conceit developed by the Experimental Architecture Group. Official Selection Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival 2025
A Life On Earth
Director: Benjamin Wigley
Year: 2019
A hand-crafted celluloid film that uses the cycle of life over one year at an English allotment to structure a personal, poetic, hypnotic regression in time of a family's journey through Invitro Fertilisation process (IVF) for their second child, inviting the audience to philosophise and connect with our relationship to the world.
Paa Joe and the Lion
Director: Benjamin Wigley
Year: 2016
Ghana 2011. Inside a dusty roadside shack sleeps Paa Joe - the world renowned Grandfather of the fantasy coffin trade. He dreams of his bygone days – bringing money home in briefcases and work being shipped to galleries the world over. Now, he sleeps as the cars hurtle passed. There are no customers, no tourists – there are no coffins to make. His son, Jacob, dreams too, he dreams of returning his father to his glory days and rebuilding the family legacy together. Over the next four years they stand side-by-side, conquering love and death and embracing a life changing opportunity to travel to the UK to undertake an artist residency. It is the start of their future together – father and son, master and apprentice, Paa Joe & The Lion. Sheffield Doc/Fest 2016 - World premiere