Director: Juriaan Booij

Commissioned by: Studio Swine

I edited a 12 minute film directed (and shot) by Juriaan Booij for Studio Swine's Fordlandia exhibition at ULA in London.

Studio Swine's project Fordlandia was inspired by a ghost town deep in the Amazon Rainforest built by the American Industrialist Henry Ford in the late 1920’s to secure a supply of rubber for his automobile empire.

For the exhibition Studio Swine created a fictional domestic space made entirely of Amazonian rubber and other materials from the rainforest. The installation "explores the idea of synthesis between nature and industry, questioning Henry Ford’s attempt to tame nature in profit of his industrial gain."

The film played in a loop as part of the exhibition to give context and colour to the installation, as it shows both the deserted remnants of Henry Ford's disruption and the method of rubber tapping still used by the native people today.

From Studio Swine:

"The rubber tapper starts at 4am to avoid trekking through the forest during the hottest part of the day. He walks for six hours through forest trails visiting over 100 trees in which he cuts away a small channel of bark. The latex flows into a cup for up to six hours after which the tapper returns to collect it into a pail before it coagulates. Each tree produces around five litres of latex a year. The rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis is native to the Amazon, where they grow wild and can be tapped without harm. A kilo of latex is worth more than a kilo of beef. Buying wild rubber is one way to find value in the forest remaining wild and untouched."

More on the project can be found here: