"We cannot control the broad sweep of history; healing only arrives through individual narratives, communities, and our own part in these."
Hidden within the dense greenery of Luffness Forest in East Lothian lie the ruins of a 13th-century Carmelite Friary. It is a site of profound contradiction: a place of peace founded by a Crusader, holding within its stones the memories of ancient holy wars and the promise of spiritual quiet, but also a darker, modern resonance, where the emblems of the past are being rewritten by the extremists of the present.
Traces is a short documentary that follows artist Rose Strang as she confronts these layers of history. Sparked by a creative expedition to the site on June 1st, 2024, the film documents a journey of perception.
The group explores how a broken arch or a moss-covered tomb can speak to our fragmented present, looking at the “molecular” details of nature, the cycle of death and renewal, the film asks if art and contemplation can offer a path to reconciliation in a world still torn by conflict.
In the modern world, we tend to see physical objects as “just things” onto which we might later project a meaning (“This rose reminds me of love”). In the medieval way of seeing, the meaning is intrinsic to the object. The rose is not just a biological flower that you decide is a symbol; it is, by its very nature, a physical manifestation of divine love.
To the medieval mind, the physical world was translucent, it was a veil through which spiritual realities could be seen.
The visual approach to Traces was designed to try and mirror the medieval way of seeing, where the physical and the symbolic exist simultaneously.
How do we reconcile the divisions of the past with the present? The cinematography operates on a principle of duality, recurringly questioning where “reality” truly sits.
Through the use of symmetry and selective focus, the camera often prioritises reflections or out of focus elements over the sharp and real physical world, suggesting that our memory or artistic interpretation of a place is sometimes more real than the reality itself.
The rough grain of 800-year-old stone and the delicate resilience of snowdrops.
In this space, opposing forces coexist, offering a containing framework where the ancient and the living breathe together in spiritual quiet.
Rose Strang Rose’s work focuses on the “traces” human history leaves on the landscape. Her series of paintings for this project evokes the atmosphere of the friary, translating the experience of the forest into a study of light, memory, and healing
Richard Demarco A legendary figure in the Scottish arts, Demarco joins the creative expedition to offer his unique insight. He identifies the site not as a ruin, but as a “communion of travellers,” recognising the broken arches as a form of prayer made stone.
A FILM BY Manuel Pennuto
FEATURING Rose Strang • Richard Demarco • Terry Anne Newman
ANIMATION & ADDITIONAL CAMERA Adam Brewster
ORIGINAL SCORE Based on the 14th-century Bryd one Brere Arranged by Jacob Olah, Adam Brewster & Rose Strang
