Drawing Restraint 9 (NR)

synopsis

Shot in Nagasaki Bay on board the Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru. The relationship between self-imposed resistance and creativity, a theme that symbolically tracks through the construction and transformation of a vast sculpture of liquid vaseline, called 'The Field', which is molded, poured, bisected and reformed on the deck of the ship over the course of the film. Barriers hold form in place, and when they are removed, the film tracks the descent of form into states of sensual surrender and formal atrophy. This shift in the physical state of the sculpture is symbolically mirrored through the narrative of the guests, two occidental visitors to the ship.