Vision itself can be tactile, as though the eyes were brushing along the surface of the
image

(Laura U. Marks)

The film investigates time, curiosity, and transformation, sparked by a hate crime. Instead of centering on violence, it exists at the periphery, exploring the duality of generativity and the paralyzing aspects of dissociation. The work weaves together three formal layers: essay film, nature documentary, and fiction.
Part of my practice involves re-editing material to create multiple versions this work. Each version responds to its surroundings, reflecting the place and the relationships it evokes, thereby dissolving the film’s static, enclosed nature. In prior works, I have drawn parallels between the material layers of film and how memories reside in the body: as recordings remain unchanged, trauma can assume a fixed form, replaying in repetition. This project experiments with breaking up that frozen form through artistic processes where time, body, and desire take new shapes, including performative screenings. The performative film screening is an invitation to bring your body to the cinema: to listen with your eyes, to see with your back, to respond to the screen with the felt sense of your experiences. Performative film screenings an invitation to see what happens if we include more senses the the dominating eye in the experience of film.

Ester Bergsmark is an artist, filmmaker, and artistic researcher exploring the intersections of film, sensory perception, and trans femme embodiment. Her work spans experimental film, fiction, and performative screenings, investigating desire, tactile seeing and embodied ways of experiencing the moving image. Bergsmark’s artistic research project voice under (PhD, Stockholm University of the Arts,2023), presented at Accelerator Konsthall, invites audiences into multisensory cinematic experiences that explore uncertainty, bodily engagement, and relational perception. Her films include Something Must Break (2014), She Male Snails (2012), Maggie vaknar på balkongen (2008), Swedish Candy, Some Violence and a Bit of Cat (2018), and Instinct (2019, short, co-dir).

Ester lives on the outskirts of Stockholm, surrounded by lakes, forests and friends.