The National

The National is a collaboration with the painter Dillwyn Smith whose mother suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease. In an attempt to stimulate a fading memory, Dillwyn’s would often turned to his father’s reel-to-reel tape deck (the National), and play recordings of his family singing Irish songs 37 years earlier.

 

We became interested in the recorder as an object of communication with an inherent personality and archive of memories. The National is shot from many angles and in a documentary style. This identifies the recorder as the main protagonist, operating with repetitive action and delivering a range of borrowed memories from political songs to strange laughter.