Speaking from Shelter in Place

Here we discuss our process of making this work during Covid 19 lockdown, in a public park that became William's home during that time.

What does it mean to participate, to counted for, in a system that renders invisible, illegal, unconfirmed all those it cannot categorise. Such systems literalise structural violence.

We spoke of how proper shelter is about far more than just a structure, about how a space - an actual place, even one without walls can seed and grow a community, and how rules can unmake such an assembly.

We were listening for something, another way of telling - more contemplative and attentive - an allowance just to be, as we are, with each other. How not to be in the present, tense, but simply present.

Estuary Live Lounge presents the second film in this three part series: Speaking from Shelter in Place.

In an investigation into the nature of public space and our access to it, Gareth leads a conversation with filmmaker Andrea Luka Zimmerman and musician William Fontaine, the main protagonist in her new work to be premiered at Estuary 2021 Shelter in Place.

Shelter in Place was made during Summer 2020. Performance artist and musician William Fontaine found himself without a place at the beginning of the first Covid 19 lockdown. A public park became his shelter. Over the weeks, he and Andrea practiced martial arts and Andrea noticed a community slowly forming around him. This film is a portrait of his being in the park, of the park itself, and of those who gathered. Sound and image are out of synch, just as so much of the world was – and is. It is not a documentary of that time, but a document, a witness statement, a poetics of singular presence.

• https://www.estuaryfestival.com/event/de...