in which the root precedes the plant – 3rd June 2025

May 21, 2025 1:14 pm

in which the root precedes the plant brings together four films spanning glasshouses, archives, kelp, celluloid and land to think through themes of community, extraction and the construction of landscape(s). 

Rachel McBrinn and Alison Scott’s film After Glass explores the intricacies of the gaze as it permeates the controlled environment of the glasshouse. Touching on bodies and publics in archival footage and community recordings, drawn from their year in residence at St Andrew’s Botanical Gardens they explore these structures’ entangled histories.

A group of white women in pale sashes walk in pairs across the screen, behind them is a fountain and the structure of a glasshouse. Their dresses and haircuts look like the 70s and the archive image is slightly grainy.

Pinta Milk, still from archival film, c1970, courtesy STV

Looking Over The Fence is a film made by visiting Czech filmmakers Raduz Cincera & Jan Sparta in 1965. The film depicts life on the streets of Glasgow as it might appear to an alien, someone or something washed ashore from elsewhere, and offers a look back at Glasgow as it was then through a comic and cheeky voiceover.

An old style white car and yellow and green bus wait on a residential street while people cross the road in front of the camera.
Still from Looking Over The Fence, Raduz Cincera & Jan Sparta

Julia Parks’s Seaweed continues the exploration of Scottish communities within the archive through an exploration of seaweed and kelp harvesting in the highlands. Looking at the industry and delicate balance of resource extraction, culture and the entwined threats that jeopardise both.

A pair of arms in a bright yellow jacket reach down with orange scissors to cut a clump of hair like seaweed.
Still from Seaweed, Julia Parks

Chloe Charlton’s film Memories of the Shoreline enacts a mapping of coastal surfaces in four parts. Experimental 16mm directs the gaze toward the ground surveying topographies in lyrical, nonlinear rhythms.

A close up of a yellow lichen covered rock, the shadows are sharp and crisp.
Memories of The Shoreline 1-4, still, Chloe Charlton

Join us on Tuesday 3rd June at 6:30 pm for the screening at 3 Ross Street followed by an informal discussion with some drinks.

Free tickets can be booked via eventbrite ~ https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/in-which-the-root-precedes-the-plant-screening-tickets-1372619625249?aff=oddtdtcreator

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Accessibility:

The event space is wheelchair accessible with an accessible toilet.

Captioning: due to the nature of archive films not all of the films in the program have subtitles.

After Glass – subtitled

Looking Over The Fence – not subtitled

Seaweed – subtitled

Memories of The Shoreline – not subtitled, no dialogue

We have access bursaries available for childcare and travel expenses, please get in touch about this or any other access enquiries market@marketgallery.org