The Green and Pleasant Land
(Initiated: 2017)
Taking as its subject different perceptions of the British landscape, this short animated film is a roaming exploration of national identity and collective history set in a post-Brexit environment. Using a 3D model of the United Kingdom, a variety of visual scenarios – poignant, nostalgic and absurd – are enacted using a ‘live’ animation technique. These scenes draw directly on user comments found below the line of videos and online newspaper articles concerning the English and British countryside.
What emerges is a meditation on the British landscape – both as an imaginary vision and as a new world digitally constructed. The Green and Pleasant Land is a site where opinion, memory, history and highly charged emotion are given form, and are opened up for discussion and critique. The film had its World Premiere at the Sheffield Doc Fest in 2018.
This film was commissioned by Arebyte gallery and developed through a residency with support from Arts Council England. It was exhibited as part of Arebyte’s 2017 programme. It has since been presented in a wide variety of exhibitions and film festivals in the UK and Europe (see below for details).
Presentations and Recognition
The film has been screened at the following film festivals and galleries:
2022, Watermans, London
2019, Vitrine, London
2019, Werkleitz Centre for Media Art, Halle
2018, Sheffield Doc Fest, Sheffield (UK)
2018, DOK Leipzig: 61st International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film
2018, Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam
2018, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York (UK)
2018, Bolton International Film Festival, Bolton (UK)
2017, Arebyte gallery, London
It has been written about in the following articles and essays:
2019, ‘Max Colson satirises post-Brexit UK in a 3D-modelled animation‘, It’s Nice That, UK
2017, ‘The Green and Pleasant Land’, (essay by Tom Jeffreys, commissioned to accompany the arebyte exhibition)
2017, ‘East End Exhibitions – Five of the Best for December’, Hackney Citizen (written by Andrew Barnes)
2017, ‘Crude Golden Age: A Comment on The Green and Pleasant Land by Max Colson’, Digicult (written by Filippo Lorenzin)
2017, London Art Journal blog (written by Giulia Pistone)