Sometimes I think I have explored this entire garden, wandered through all its paths, roamed up all its hills, and admired all the views. Lost in reverie, I suddenly detect another pathway once again… This experimental animation features the enigmatic bodies of dyed crystals grown by Maria Ferreira and by Dr. Bart Kahr, the lead scientist at the Kahr Research Group who has worked on growing these types of crystals throughout the past 30 years. The film is an embroidery of thousands of crystals documented in a unique way Ferreira discovered utilizing scanners. She learned about the lost art and science of growing painted crystals during her artist residence in the chemistry laboratory of the Kahr Research Group at New York University.
Maria Constanza Ferreira (b. 1994, Caracas, Venezuela) is a multimedia artist and independent animator. Her works have been showcased internationally at places such as Times Square Midnight Moment, Slamdance Festival, Konstpaus Stockholm, MoMA PS1, IndieLisboa Film Festival, and the Exploratorium Museum. In 2020 Ferreira was the recipient of the GLAS Animation Festival Grant, the singular grant of its kind for independent animators in the US, in addition to receiving nominations for Vimeo’s Best of the Year in the “Experimental Category”. In 2019 and 2020, Ferreira was awarded a residency in the chemistry laboratory of the Kahr Research Group at New York University, with funding from the National Science Foundation and the Kahr Group, and in 2021 she was an artist in residence at the Santa Barbara Center for Art, Science, and Technology. She received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Film/Animation/Video and Graphic Design.
