Hawaiian tales of a healing "third sex", a new treasure trove of "motionpoems", & engineers riff on climate. Some animated delights for you

Our occasional three-film mini-festival, to rattle and clatter your doors of perception….Animation heavy this month.

Above is an animation about a Hawaiian myth of a “third sex” of healers. From the Aeon site:

In Hawaiian culture, moʻolelo means story, tale or myth, but it also refers to history. Traditionally passed down through oral storytelling, moʻolelo serve as a connection to the past, carrying wisdom and entertainment across generations. Over the centuries, however, many moʻolelo have been censored or lost altogether due to Western colonisation.

The short animation Kapaemahu is an adaptation of a nearly forgotten mo’olelo about four māhū – people possessing both male and female qualities in mind, body and spirit – who brought healing arts from Tahiti to Hawaii.

As the story goes, the māhū imbued with their powers four boulders, which stood at a sacred site for hundreds of years until they were forgotten.

Told through a modern lens by the Native Hawaiian teacher, filmmaker and māhū Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu and the Emmy Award-winning US filmmakers Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer, Kapaemahu brings renewed life to this moʻolelo via animations inspired by Polynesian tapa designs and a touch of Hawaii’s recent history.

Above is a simple but affecting animation of a poem by Stacey Lynn Brown, Undersong. From a real treasure trove called MotionPoems, an archive of 150 animated and filmed poems from 2012-2020. More from this in later blogs.

Finally, a message video made in the style of concrete poetry, to celebrate the relevance of engineering to climate change. Actually, it’s delightful design… from Creative Review:

The work features words, design and art direction by Lucienne Roberts, who was appointed as visiting professor for communication at Southhampton University in 2019, a role she describes as “someone who could help students learn how to communicate their ideas more effectively, to non-specialists in particular”. “I am there to weave communication into the curriculum and demonstrate why engineering is defined as a design discipline,” she continues. “This latter task is dear to my heart … engineers plan, test, make – they are innovative, creative thinkers, they are of course designers too.”