MICHELLE WILLIAMS GAMAKER
  • WORKS
    • THE SILVER WAVE (2020)
    • ENCORE (RESURRECTION MANIFESTATIONS) (2019)
    • THE ETERNAL RETURN (2019)
    • THE FRUIT IS THERE TO BE EATEN (2017)
    • DISTANT RELATIVE (2019)
    • HOUSE OF WOMEN (2017)
    • BROWN QUEERS (2017)
    • ELEPHANT BOY (2015) >
      • Elephant Boy’s Adventures in Reconstruction​
  • News
  • INDEX
    • Archive
    • Films in development >
      • THE BANG STRAWS
      • VIOLET CULBO
    • Collaboration >
      • Collaboration with Julia Kouneski
      • Collaborations with Mieke Bal
    • Man In Parts
    • WOCI Reading Group
  • Bio/Contact

THE ETERNAL RETURN

Single-channel video installation
2018 | HDV | Black-and-white | Sound | 20" | English
​
The Eternal Return explores the phenomenon of how a performer of colour such as international actor Sabu might be treated and thought of in a way analogous to the animals with whom he appears. In Sabu’s case this was the conflation of his background as mahout son’s with his career as actor that imposed a seemingly inescapable relationship with elephants: the animals recur throughout his filmography. It also highlights how, in spite of his extraordinary fame Sabu was always the sidekick and never the love interest. With the use of a combination of live-action dramatised recreation and British Pathé stock footage re-edited and altered with VFX, The Eternal Return revisits the now-struggling Sabu in 1951 as he supports his family by performing – once more with a troupe of elephants – in Tom Arnold’s Christmas Circus in Haringey Arena. 
Alll site contents © Michelle Williams Gamaker 1999-2020
  • WORKS
    • THE SILVER WAVE (2020)
    • ENCORE (RESURRECTION MANIFESTATIONS) (2019)
    • THE ETERNAL RETURN (2019)
    • THE FRUIT IS THERE TO BE EATEN (2017)
    • DISTANT RELATIVE (2019)
    • HOUSE OF WOMEN (2017)
    • BROWN QUEERS (2017)
    • ELEPHANT BOY (2015) >
      • Elephant Boy’s Adventures in Reconstruction​
  • News
  • INDEX
    • Archive
    • Films in development >
      • THE BANG STRAWS
      • VIOLET CULBO
    • Collaboration >
      • Collaboration with Julia Kouneski
      • Collaborations with Mieke Bal
    • Man In Parts
    • WOCI Reading Group
  • Bio/Contact