https://www.eileenwhite.co.uk/portfolio

Handmade botanically toned cyanotype animation.  
3 minutes, 10 seconds
Music by Boris Allenou

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As part of an exhibition at
The Arc City Space Gallery, Winchester

8 November – 14 December 2025

‘The Endless Turn and Return’ was commissioned by Hampshire Cultural Trust to complement ‘Beauty of the Earth, the Art of William, Jane and May Morris’, which ran concurrently in The Arc, Gallery Space.

In her book ‘Staying with the Trouble. Making Kin in the Chthulucene’,

Donna J. Haraway writes,

‘We become with each other or not at all.’* 

Haraway’s writing is a conversation about what we stand to lose if we don’t change the way we see ourselves in relation to the wider world. Eileen’s practice, as illustrated in her handmade animation, ’The Endless Turn and Return’, expresses this sentiment, which communicates her dedication to handmade, slow, repetitive, labour-intensive, and uncalibrated processes. These are embodied acts of ‘making with’ Nature, working within a circular economy by thinking of waste as a source of renewal and adopting a less anthropocentric perspective. It is her form of political activism.

Eileen’s work unfolds slowly in relation to materials, light, and the seasons, taking days and, in the case of this film, 3 1/2 months to produce. It cannot be rushed. As such, it is the antithesis of today’s fast-paced digital culture, which promises instant gratification with little authenticity.

The film’s 3-min, 10-sec duration consists of 2,634 physical cyanotype prints, a low-toxic, historical process discovered by Sir John Hershel in 1842. It involves hand-coating paper with light-sensitive ferrous-based salts, which are then exposed to sunlight before being developed in water. The result is a Prussian blue print. Eileen went on to tone each print using botanicals from her garden and Crab Wood, which gives the film an organic, constantly shifting colour-scape, embedding the ecology of the site into the work.

Boris Allenou, a Sound Artist, created the soundtrack accompanying the film by capturing the electrical activity of plants, which complements and acknowledges the role that vegetal life plays in Eileen’s practice.