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Screenings | Hugh Hayden Hugh the Hunter
Award-winning director Zachary Heinzerling’s 2015 short film Hugh The Hunter takes the form of a storybook fable, in which a fictitious hunter – played by artist Hugh Hayden – is followed on a daylong quest to find the elusive Red Grouse, 'a bird prized for its camouflage and deceit'. Made during Hayden’s time as artist-in-residence at the Glenfiddich Distillery in the Scottish Highlands, the film explores both Hienzerling’s reimagined vision of the lord of a countryside estate, and a surreal recontextualisation of Hayden’s practice, considering the anthropomorphisation of the natural world as a visceral lens for exploring the human condition.
Along his journey in search of the grouse, Hugh becomes increasingly suspicious of his own visibility and postition at the hunter, amongst landscapes in which he himself is the trespasser attempting camouflage. Hugh begins to question the nature of disguise and necessity of 'fitting into the landscape' in this film that draws on the various strands of his artistic practice – from use of 'native' and 'invasive' wood species and other natural materials in sculpture, to food and communal culinary experiences. Click through below and select full screen to watch.