At Dawn You Shall Appear – A Plea In Four Acts is a poetic four-piece composition on the fragility of man and the divinity of nature. It was shot during lockdown in London, as creator Steffen Johansen saw the rapid return of nature as a result of humans retreating to the confinements of their homes.
The lingering visuals, emphasizing the grandness of nature, are accompanied by selected pieces of poetry that address existential questions which arise as our world changes — while underlining the circular nature of our existence.
The film poses questions about our relationship to nature, our place in the world, our fragility as a species. If we were to disappear today, what would we leave behind for tomorrow?
The making of ADYSA was a collaborative process in which each contributor significantly shaped the final work. The work is developed in a flat structure with an emphasis on the implementation of inputs from the participants. This makes the work a direct result of a fundamental surrender to the idea of connecting and that artistic value is dependent on the meeting and collaboration of people. Without this participatory approach, there would be no work.
Thematically the work is centered around how humans interact with the most profound of all relationships… Our planet. And consecutively our place on it, in it, with it.
Technically the presentation of the grandness of nature is crudely digital. With the aspect ratio of a common smartphone and an experimental color grading, the work questions the way nature is portrayed through digital means, and how this affects our relationship with the world around us.
The work brings post-industrialization poetry into the modern day, revealing the similarities of our relationship with our world across the decades - whilst underlining how little we’ve progressed. The poems are dominantly found in the Common Domain, which means they are public works that outside copyrights or commercial interests belong to the people.
Our issues with coexisting in the space we’ve been given haven’t changed since the poems were conceived. Hence the plea. Nature is our deity. Our dependence. Our responsibility. And we are failing it. Gravely.
