FILM

Rather than illustrating myth, Durga draws on the Hindu goddess’s generative and destructive force, understanding creation as cyclical, unstable, and continually in motion. Across recurring images, it evokes cycles of fertility, loss, and regeneration, while meaning coalesces through association, duration, and return. Shadows appear. Images overlap. Until the film’s black becomes white — exposed.

Made while Syed was an undergraduate student at the University of East London, the film emerged from her exploration of 16mm printing techniques. She paced it according to the time it takes for the image to “fade from saturated black to a ghostly white, where memory lingers more strongly than representation.”