The Masque of Blackness

Overview

Epoh Beech's The Masque of Blackness is a hand drawn animation re-imagining Ben Jonson's 1605 play The Masque of Blackness and Joseph Conrad's 1899 novella Heart of Darkness. Created over 7 years out of thousands of charcoal drawings, the animation weaves both texts together and explores the spirit of place to take you on a journey from West Africa to the Thames in London and the Rhine in Germany. It has themes of moonlight, oceans, rivers, unexplored territory, mythological symbolism and highlights concerns for the environment. Our guides on the journey are Hermes, a grey seal, and Pegasus, the winged horse, they are both unconstrained by the straight jacket of time.