In the essay, Zinman addresses the question “how can documentary authorship be shared among its human participants as well as with the natural world?”

“Geographies of Solitude is an examination of how organic and inorganic, human and nonhuman processes, can not only affect and inform one another, but also contribute to a creative method,” Zinman writes. “Mills’ process sets aside goals of controlling or taming nature in order to pursue a documentary practice that decenters the human while increasing our sensitivity toward — and potentially reframes our co-existence with — the animals, insects, plants, and matter that constitute our shared world.”

The essay is available on the Arsenal — Institute for Film and Video website: https://www.arsenal-berlin.de/en/forum-forum-expanded/forum-program/forum-main-program/essay-wild-and-messy-places/.