Dark Spring

Dark Spring takes its starting point from the final scene from Unica Zürn’s autobiographical coming-of-age novel. Dark Spring was Zürn’s last book, published in 1970, the same year as her suicide (which the book is thought by many to foreshadow). Projected in two adjacent channels, the imagery alternates between wide-angle objective shots and tight point-of-view shots as the young female protagonist’s voice struggles, humorously at some times, tragically at others, against that of an imposed male narration. Title cards interrupt the images, telling a seemingly separate story about my relationship to the book and my own memories of childhood.