“‘which architect could cut the neck of one tree & make ten grow?’”
After humans have destroyed the world (again) an unnamed beast swims up from a forgotten swamp and rebuilds the world from zilch. CASTOROCENE, shifting between essay and semi-fictionalised nature documentary, is a ‘film pome’ dedicated to one of nature’s great architects. Depicting wetlands as the living entity that they are, the camera dwells on a landscape of viscous textures, organic debris and nonhuman sculptures, considering parities between acts of borrowing, rewilding and animal world building. Filmed by artist Alexander Hetherington on 16mm film in the wetlands at Bamff in East Perthshire, Scotland.