When my grandfather passed away my mother and her siblings stood at the gravesite and sang the song 'Blue Moon'. Their parents would sing this song when they were children and although not able to fully get through it, I will always remember the lines, "Blue moon, you saw me standing alone, without a dream in my heart."
This work features found family footage of my grandfather, when my parents visited family in Samoa, and when my family went to Rarotonga for the first time to see family, the year I turned sixteen. The footage is shaky, the hand of the person (most likely my father) holding the camera is unstable as the camera takes the viewer through the family home in Rarotonga. My grandfather laughs and dances silently to a slowed down backing track as do the dancers I saw at the hotel in Raro. The video is layered and almost folds back upon itself revealing and concealing faces and people that are no longer alive and moments that have long passed. There may be markers of time in the videos, but blue moon attempts to flatten time, to show the slipperiness of the medium of the camera and honour family, history and that perhaps the moon saw it all along and we are not alone.
blue moon (2022)
Other works by Talia Smith
Talia Smith
A Long Distance Relationship (Parts 1 to 3) (2017)
A Long Distance Relationship is a year-long video project that attempts to make sense of the emotional and physical distance between the past, present, and the future.
Talia Smith
The light between two points (2018)
The Sydney-based artist and their mother in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland each film the day’s sunset from their respective homes, as a way to bridge the distance between them.
Talia Smith
The Ocean is a Place (2019)
The Ocean is a Place explores the complexities of history—whether real or imagined, and the layers of trauma that can be passed down through generations.