Filmed in Peru, Louise Bennett’s Light Between Our Oceans highlights the physical and psychological space between ourselves and others. The camera becomes Bennett’s ears and eyes as she gazes across the South Pacific Ocean towards her homeland, Australia. In this gesture she contemplates the physical separation, yet emotional connection to her past. The work is indicative of Bennett’s spatial and sculptural approach to sound and video; employing portrait televisions at eye height and multiple sound channels, to give a sense of intimacy.

Blurred horizons and smog filled atmospheres provide an obscured snapshot of the artist’s experiences of the Peruvian public and private sphere. Soft kissing, Spanish radio, the ocean, and a person singing in the shower can be heard, while sirens and fireworks alluding to gunshots ring-out across the landscape. These conflicting soundscapes suggests explosive personal relationships, and a life between two countries that hold their own colonial tensions. From a distance the audio tracks interlace, blurring Bennett’s inner and outer worlds.

Light Between Our Oceans is the third instalment of the 2018 Green Screen program. Presented in partnership with the Queensland Film Festival, the IMA’s Green Screen presents moving image works with a connection to Queensland.

On 28 June 2018, the IMA will be holding a poetry reading and closing event for Light Between Our Oceans. Bennett’s spoken word poem will share some of the artist’s idiosyncratic experiences living in Lima.