Snow

2019
Country: UK
Duration: 42 mins
Colour,
Sound: Stereo
Ratio: 4:3
Available Format/s: SD Digital File
Original Format: HD Video

  ,

12th June 2019

I keep returning to Hi-8 videotape my father shot in the winter of 1995/6, that until a month ago, I did not know even existed. The tape had been lying dormant in a box with the camera he had bought.

‘Today is the 25th December 1995.’

I am looking at the house we grew up in; it is covered with snow. My father has walked part way up the hill; he continually comments on the scene but the tape has degraded so it’s difficult to catch exactly what he says – every time I view the footage I glean a different meaning.

I have been a servant to the video. It called out to me to mend it, but I also wanted to destroy it; it has been re-captured digitally, held within different codes, the signals have reconvened, allowing a different picture to emerge, an-other home movie.

Commissioned by Ruth Noack for ‘Sleeping with a Vengeance, Dreaming of a Life‘, Snow is a performative video diary; a family archaeology of what you can and can’t ‘uncover’, ‘access’ through the image.

More works by Alia Syed

We’d love to hear from you

If you would like to speak to a member of our team, please get in touch

Skip to content