Triforium (2021)
Jayne Parker
Triforium Jayne Parker UK16mm > digital7 min 2021
Images of Westminster Abbey’s triforium—a gallery hidden from view for centuries that runs sixteen metres high above the floor of the nave—are contrasted with those of magnolias that blossom for only a few days, plants which Parker films year after year. Permanence and transience; life and death. The film is dedicated to the memory of the late teacher and writer A. L. Rees, who passed away in 2014. – Open City Documentary Festival
Accompanied by Laurence Crane’s music, the film holds the stillness and quietude of the triforium, the accumulation of centuries of ascending prayer. – Jayne Parker
Streaming Details
This film is available to stream globally.
Program Partners
This film is co-presented with Open City Documentary Festival.
Image credits: all artworks, stills, and portraits courtesy of the artist © Jayne Parker.
about the artist
Jayne Parker (UK) is an artist, filmmaker, and teacher born in Nottingham in 1957. She received a BA in Fine Art from Canterbury College of Art (1980), and a Higher Diploma in Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London (1982). She has stated about her practice: “I like the physicality of film and its precision; I like the sense of space within the frame and being able to direct people to what I want them to see. Filmmaking allows me to make connections between seemingly unconnected images or events. There is a strong element of performance in all my work.” Parker has completed 30+ films since 1979, which have been exhibited widely at festivals, museums, and galleries internationally, including Jeonju International Film Festival, Institute of Contemporary Art, the British Film Institute, Tate Modern, Chicago International Film Festival, Open City Documentary Film Festival, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Museion, Moderna Museet, Punta de Vista Film Festival, and seven previous editions of Media City Film Festival. Much of Parker’s film work over the last two decades takes the performance of music as its subject. Cellist Anton Lukoszevieze and pianist Katharina Wolpe feature in many films, playing music by composers such as Stefan Wolpe, Olivier Messiaen, Helmut Oehring, Volker Heyn, John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Laurence Crane. She is the recipient of awards, fellowships, and other accolades, including the Henry Moore Foundation 1871 Fellowship, University of Oxford and San Francisco Art Institute (2003). Her film Crystal Aquarium (1995) was awarded the FIPRESCI Grand Prize and an Honourable Mention at ISFF Oberhausen (1997). Her film Stationary Music (2005) received the ARTE Prize for European Short Film at Oberhausen (2005). The DVD compilation Jayne Parker: British Artists’ Films was released by the BFI (2009). Her films are distributed by LUX. She is Head of Graduate Fine Art Media at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. She lives and works in London, UK.