Director, Editor, Producer, Writer

  • Eugenia Lim
enjoy.org.nz

A portrait of a living, working ecology and the multi-species it sustains, Metabolism is a film essay that considers the body-as-land and land-as-body.

Filmed around the site of the Western Treatment Plant (WTP) in Werribee, Victoria, Australia, Metabolism considers metabolism as an ambivalent process that connects external and internal forces: from chemical energy-creation within our bodies, to capitalism’s ‘metabolic rift’. For the Wadawurrung people, Wirribi-yaluk (Werribee river) is the backbone and spine of Country, a waterway that has sustained life since time immemorial. Wirribi-yaluk runs along the eastern edge of the WTP, a living and flowing entity connecting old ways with new. Since colonisation, the land, waters and air of this place have been drastically shaped to produce and metabolise food, waste, energy and water. New housing developments with names like ‘Riverwalk’ and ‘Manor Lakes’ spring up within smelling distance of effluent ponds in an ongoing process of birth, death and renewal. Through multiscalar ‘ways of seeing’, in Metabolism, bodies are porous and interconnected—from the microscopic to the planetary.

Created across seasons, in dialogue with the site-as-protagonist, Metabolism considers the interdependencies between human and more-than-human bodies, interior and exterior ecologies, and the consumption, colonisation and capitalisation of body-as-land.


CREDITS

Director, Editor, Producer, Writer - Eugenia Lim Cinematographer - Tim Hillier Composer, Sound Designer, Mixing - Carolyn Schofield (Fia Fiell) Drone Operators - Trent Perrett and Glenn Hester Production Coordinator - Bianca Chang Wadawurrung Cultural Advisors - Stephanie Skinner and Corinna Eccles Performers - Lee Wan and Harshanie Habarakadage Western Treatment Plant Operations - Peter Kissonergis Melbourne Water Heritage Advisor - Paul Balassone Colourist and Post - Chris Tomkins Title Design - Amery Oke-Johnston (Thought & Found) Sound Mastering, Recording Engineer - Pat Telfer Artistic Advisors - Amos Gebhardt and Gabrielle Brady

Metabolism was filmed on and in the lands, waters and skies of the Wadawurrung. We pay our deep respect to the sovereign traditional custodians of this place for their deep, ongoing practice of care for country, kin and culture.

Commissioned by Public Art Commission, Deakin University and the City of Wyndham. Presented by PUBLICS.

Opening Hours

  • Wednesday - Friday, 11am - 6pm
  • Saturdays, 11am - 4pm

Address

  • 211 Left Bank
  • Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington