Melancholy Matter is a designed walking performance around ‘dark’ places.

Seemingly disparate themes of dark matter, post-soviet melancholy and black bile develop an interconnected pattern of networked elements that examine the etymology of materials, and manifest the realm of the unknown and unexplored.

Shot in Lithuania and screened 1,1km underground in Boulby Mine, the deepest dark matter research facility in the UK, where the film designs an alternative method of questioning reality, and results in a unique collection of distinctive perspectives of the universe and humanity’s role within it.

The film features Jadvyga Šulskienė, who shares her melancholy memories from the Soviet times in Lithuania, a chairman of the Dark Matter UK Dr Chamkaur Ghag, and a biochemist Dr Dave Bailey, who speculate on melancholy’s correlation with black bile and dark matter.

The project is submitted as a partial fulfilment of Goldsmiths, University of London requirements for the degree of BA (Hons) Design. 

Thanks to:

Elena Reimeryte, Guillermo Cardenas Gutierrez (camera), Dimitris Menexopoulos (sound)