The Wonderful Agency of Weeds (2024)

The Wonderful Agency of Weeds is a 7 minutes short documentary film directed by Alec Boyd focusing on my work with foraged plant fibres.

A yearlong journey of my art practice recorded on film and distilled into the length of 7 minutes . The director's cut is presented in an unusual triptych format. This short film is currently on a tour around the UK, showing at independent venues. accompanied by an Artists in Conversation style live Q&A event with the featured artist Hanna Varga and filmmaker Alec Boyd.

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The film was shown to the public 5 times in the last quarter of 2024 - in Manchester, Edale, Nottingham and one online live streaming.

We look forward to continue touring this film throughout the UK in 2025. If you have a space where we could bring to screen the film to an audience accompanied by an artists in Conversation style event we would love to hear from you. Please get in touch with the filmmaker Al here or with me here.

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about Al: https://degreeshow.mmu.ac.uk/2024/profiles/alec-boyd/

Alec Boyd is a filmmaker and artist based in the peak district. Working predominantly in documentary and non-fiction film, this piece The Wonderful Agency of Weeds is a portrait of artist and crafts person Hanna Varga framed around the exploration of where the worlds of craft and art intersect and is the culmination of two years of creative practice concerning these themes, under the over arching title Films of Craft and the Craft of Films. 

This film is triptych in it's exhibition and comprised of three strands of depiction woven across three screens to emulate the process of weaving in a digital capacity.

• awhboyd@gmail.com

• www.alecboyd.co.uk

• instagram.com/awhboyd

• www.linkedin.com/in/alecboydfilm

The film was first on show at School of Digital Arts (SODA) MA Show, Manchester Metropolitan University from Thursday 19 – Friday 27 September 2024.

A multi-disciplinary exhibition stretching over two weeks and showcasing work from Manchester Metropolitan’s creative postgraduate offering. The exhibitions are a celebration of our student’s achievements, creative practices and progression through further study.

2. Methodist Chapel, Edale on 8 Nov

text here

3. Nottingham on 6 Dec

4. online via zoom

Film Screening | Online Premiere - The Wonderful Agency of Weeds

Description

Join us to watch the very first online film screening of Alec Boyd's latest experimental documentary feature film. It focuses on Hanna Varga's creative practice, recording a year of her work making cordage using wild plant fibres she forages through the 4 seasons. This event will be co-hosted by artist Hanna Varga and filmmaker Alec Boyd who will be jointly presenting the film, talk about their individual art practices and will be in conversation live about the making of this short film. There will be a live Q&A with the audience. We are looking forward to sharing this with many of you who live further afield and could not come to our recent film screenings in person.

5. Edale Methodist Chapel (2nd Screening) on 18 Dec