‘Popol Vuh’ is an ancient Guatemalan/Maya text. It is the origin story of the Maya people. In it, the Gods make several attempts at creating humans using a variety of materials: from mud or clay to wood and corn. However, each of these substances prove unsuccessful until they try to make humans out of corn. Finally they succeed.
The poem is in three parts, each with a different tone and pattern on the page. The video recreates this using three sections, each employing a different technique from handheld to stop motion animation to kaleidoscopic effects. Subtle sound effects feature in sections one and two.
Filmmaker biography: Jonathan Brennan (1978) is an artist living and working in Belfast since 2012. Originally from Dublin, he lived in Brussels, Belgium from 2003-12 where he studied painting at the École des Arts d’Anderlecht. He previously studied History of Art & Architecture (and Spanish) at Dublin University, Trinity College Dublin and has a MSc in Multimedia Systems.
Jonathan works with various visual media such as printmaking, painting, video and photography. Digital technology can sometimes play a role in the process of creating his works. He is preoccupied by the relationship between digital and traditional techniques, and the values we impose on them. He is drawn to nature and landscape as subject matter and is fascinated by how urban and rural rub against each other in our cities.
Memory and place always play a significant role in his work. His works are in private collections in Europe and the US. He also teaches at the Belfast Print Workshop, writes and builds websites.
Since moving to Belfast, Jonathan has exhibited in the Ulster Museum, Golden Thread Gallery, Framewerk, ArtisAnn, Belfast Exposed, the Crescent Arts Centre, and collaborated on a dramatic performance of ‘Door into the Dark’, producing a series of video poems for the new Seamus Heaney HomePlace in Bellaghy, Northern Ireland. He exhibits regularly in group shows and had 3 solo shows in 2017, 2 in 2018 and 2 in 2019.
Jonathan is a member of the Belfast Print Workshop and Vault Artist Studios.
Poet biography: In 2019 Ireland Professor of Poetry Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin awarded Dylan Brennan the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Award. His debut poetry collection, Blood Oranges, was published by ‘The Dreadful Press’ in 2014 and was awarded the Patrick Kavanagh Award runner-up prize. In 2017 he collaborated on Guadalupe & Other Hallucinations, a series of exhibitions and an illustrated e-book, with Belfast-based visual artist Jonathan Brennan. In 2016 he co-edited Rethinking Juan Rulfo’s Creative World: Prose, Photography, Film with Prof. Nuala Finnegan (UCC), a volume of academic essays on the work of Mexican writer/photographer Juan Rulfo. He has been invited to read at major literary festivals in Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Italy, Ireland and USA and has twice been recipient of a Culture Ireland Travel Grant.