Bobby Niven - Hermit's Castle . Chez Galip

About

Hermit's Castle and Chez Galip present a comparative study of two different characters, geographically and temporally estranged, each striving to build an absurd structural sculpture in two geologically distinct landscapes. Filmwork Hermit's Castle visits Assynt, in the North of Scotland, to examine the story of David Scott, the titular castle's creator. Having fled family pressures and expectations, young architect Scott set about building his Castle on an exposed outcrop at Achmelvich. Interested in illusions of scale, the mimesis of the surrounding geological formations and the similarities between Scott's structure and a military pillbox, Niven's work simultaneously touches on ideas of absence, psychological threshold and geographical edge. Chez Galip is a filmic study of the cave in the Turkish village of Avanos, Cappadocia, which houses the accumulating hair collection of potter Galip Körükçü. A miscellany initiated by an intimate gift from a visiting French woman thirty-two years ago, the potter's 16,000-strong collection of cuttings now carpets the walls of his cave. Further to surveying this sculptural curiosity, Niven examines the fifth generation potter at work, throwing clay in a process that becomes both transformative and meditative.