'Lean Time' explores perceptions of time, nature, and human impact.
A metronome sits at the base of a tree, its pendulum swinging in slow motion. Successive images of trees, each leaning at distinct angles, are precisely arranged in an animation: their trunks, in turn, form the pendulum of the metronome.
The piece reminds us, in an unusual fashion, that trees also move and grow, just on a very different timescale to the the accelerated speed of modern human existence. This disparity in pace, combined with an eerie, slow ticking sound, provides a foreboding sense of time passing or running out: a poignant reminder that the impact of our rapid consumption reverberates across the slower timescales of the enduring, but vulnerable, natural world
Polymer Waves was ZEST's 2023 spring exhibition showcasing recent work and experiments by artists in the collective on the theme of environmental degradation.