sr

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyph ‘sr’, means ‘giraffe’. Motive of this unique animal connects worldwide human history, myths, fables and changing relationship with nature from the cave paintings, first scriptures to contemporary zoos. A surprising, visual and sometimes gently ironic essay by Lea Hartlaub consists of 16 episodes from 30 different locations like an island in the Pacific, ceramics factory in Beijing or reading room in New York.

“A long neck of a giraffe allows it to reach not only high hanging leaves, but also human imagination in the heads raised high above other animals. It is a wonder to find how this exoticized animal, a simplified symbol of Africa, in various forms reached the farthest corners of Earth. While telling the story of the giraffe in the human world, the director touches upon the issues of colonialism, appropriation, exoticization and power dynamics, questions assumptions and allows us to comprehend the possibility of still uncovered layers of what we think we know. This visual epic spanning millennia of history, with giraffes peeking out continuously, invites the thought of how many things possibly connect us around the world, and what kind of animal is the human itself.”
– Ignė Smilingytė

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