David Blandy
Commons (2025)

The Open Road: Online Screening
 

We are thrilled to be presenting David Blandy's newly developed film Commons online for a limited time as part of The Open Road.

Commons draws on the collections of objects and specimens at The Amelia Scott, Tunbridge Wells and The Beaney, Canterbury. This expansive work combines archive film with three dimensional scans and newly captured footage of ancient rocks and woodland: common land preserved for all. This collage of samples reveals a series of stories told by multiple voices; like the Pilgrims of Chaucer’s Tales, the non-human subjects and objects tell each other chronicles of their experience, over years or millennia, deliberately de-centring human existence. 

Commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella, The Amelia Scott, Cement Fields, FLAMIN, Forma, and Three Rivers, The Open Road reimagines the timeless tale of a journey taken. Loosely inspired by The Canterbury Tales, each film charts a distinct path, drawing on various storytelling traditions to explore ideas of migration and belonging, untold histories, and the deep connections between humans and the more-than-human world.

Let us know what you think of the works commissioned for The Open Road by filling in our audience survey HERE.

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Commissioned for The Open Road by The Amelia Scott, Tunbridge Wells, as part of the Kent and Medway Museum Partnership National Portfolio Organisation, and Film and Video Umbrella. Supported using public funding by Arts Council England.