Closing The Loop
20.07.2024 - 25.08.2024
Joe Preston

Closing the Loop is a new two-channel film installation by artist and filmmaker Joe Preston. The work examines the impact of climate change on food and waste cycles; looking back to traditional relationships with the land, whilst looking forward to innovative attempts to adapt to a new and unpredictable climate.

Joe’s new film, Farmers (2024), pays attention to the routines and cycles that make up planet Earth’s delicate balance. This rhythm is one that over recent decades has been pushed more and more out of sync by climate change. There is a growing awareness that over time, the effects of this crisis will be felt by us all.

Situated within rural communities across Kenya, Joe’s film looks at how rising temperatures have caused drought and loss of crops in the Global South. The film invites propositions for an alternative future, asking how farmers have adapted their rhythms and cycles to a new climate. We are shown how nature is offering new possibilities and base elements are becoming the life source for a new generation of farmers. Bugs are mixed, mashed, dried, fried and spread; waste products are rediscovered as treasure.

Farmers finds a story of rural survival, driven by innovation, education and care. These new rhythms build as knowledge is shared. Communities teach one another in order to sustain themselves and each other, and with this, the cycles can endlessly feed back. Farmers is accompanied by a newly-commissioned score by composer Euan Hinshelwood. Echoing the film’s narrative, Hinshelwood has developed cycles of sound that loop and build, immersing the viewer in this newly-imagined world.

Artist Biography

Joe Preston is a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker whose practice spans film, photography, print and installation. Combining elements of contemporary art, media and cinema, he investigates the boundaries between fiction and documentary, often experimenting with storytelling conventions and techniques. Joe’s work is preoccupied with how we tell stories and how societies and individuals are shaped by these stories.

Previous work includes The Victory Arch, which told the story of a British engineer who built Saddam Hussein’s most famous statue a few miles outside of London. The project resulted in two pieces: a film installation exhibited by VO Curations (2022) and OHSH Projects (2023), and a festival-cut that screened at Aesthetica (2022). Joe is based in London and has exhibited throughout the UK and Europe.

To view more of Joe's work, please visit: FILMS | Joe Preston