Blue Moon (2023) is a camera-less 16mm film inspired by the Blue Supermoon at Saltburn-by-the-Sea on 30 August 2023. Working in collaboration with foraged local grasses and wild plants, I contact printed the organic material directly onto the surface of recycled 16mm filmstrips coated with hand-made cyanotype chemistry. After exposure in Northern sunlight, the filmstrips were developed by washing in water. The film material was spliced together by hand to create a 3 minute film. To evoke the idea of the Full Moon, I experimented with a circular frame mask in the projector gate. I was thinking about the Moon’s immense power over the Earth’s oceans – her illusion of stillness, her repetitive cycle in perpetual motion.

Cyanotypes + phytograms on film, 3 mins, 16mm film: digitised.

Joanna Byrne is a Bradford-based artist-filmmaker who takes material, performative, collaborative and sustainable approaches to creating moving image. She works with analogue film (super 8, 16mm and 35mm) in a tactile way - incorporating found footage, hand-manipulation and physical traces of her body into her work. She is interested in how experimental, participatory film practices can be therapeutic and transformational: connecting us to ourselves, to each other, and the world around us.

https://www.joannaruthbyrne.com

https://www.instagram.com/joannaruthbyrne @joannaruthbyrne