We caught up with its creator Dane Sutherland afterwards. He mentioned that one of the  starting points for this work was the “Covenanters”, who were a religious group in Scotland who had to hide in caves and the countryside in order to practice what they believed in but whilst not doing any harm. Sound familiar to the situation we are faced with today? Parallels between the Palestine situation and the trans community abound. The Bogs that we see framing the piece come from the environment of these Covenanters. Not only did they start to blend with the land but the bogs were screens for what they believed in too. They come to represent not only humanity and nature but also then how safe spaces in real life and online are being invaded and infiltrated. 

The piece entitled “All the way down” seems to reflect this. The preacher could be a reflection of Society’s veneration of influencers peddling warped views and beyond. But it could also be someone having to hide for expressing their views. Which version do we believe? The cloth mask is frightening in how is takes on a loosely human degraded form. There is a real-life version of it on display too which is even more impressive, as it looks to embody a warped but decaying human form. Again this mask has a real world starting point. One of the leading figures of the aforementioned Covenanters, Alexander Peden, would use this mask as a disguise so as not to get caught and arrested for expressing his views…

You can watch The Bastard Fields and think if it as a fever dream, but it is almost more of a prescient marker, a warning of where things are heading. It deserves your attention. Will we take heed? As the end of the movie says:

“As a dog returns to its vomit. So a fool returns to its foolishness”.