‘Stepping On My Own Foot’ was conceived from the want to combine my two practises, fine art and animation. I wanted to push the conventions of animation to make something new which goes beyond a short film and into the realm of experimental video art. My work is informed by Soviet Experimental Animation, Philosophy, Naive/ Outsider art and Illustrative work. I also aim to integrate ideas from my own inner world into all the art I create, creating an outlet for myself and hopefully others to project onto and take their own meaning from. All my work is a bid for connection with others, an attempt at visualising my own experience in the hope that others can understand me and in turn themselves better. In ‘Stepping On My Own Foot’ we see a nameless being ascend an endless staircase as a series of vignettes from dreams and reality unfold beside him. Each memory shaping his climb and culminating in a surreal meditation on life, death and birth. ‘Stepping on My Own Foot’ is a visual and emotional exploration of the human journey, presented through a blend of symbolism, abstraction, and deeply personal yet universal imagery. The protagonist, a formless being, serves as a reflective surface, inviting viewers to imprint their own memories, emotions, and interpretations onto the narrative. The staircase symbolizes the persistent climb of daily life, while the surrounding vignettes act as echoes of lived experience, dreams, anxieties and desires. This barrage of memories and experiences culminate in the exasperated being eventually giving into the spectre of death, a bird, the same creature which brought him into this life. Influenced by absurdism and stream-of-consciousness storytelling, the film resists conventional narrative structure to instead evoke feeling and introspection.The surreal visuals and nonlinear rhythm allow the audience to navigate between the conscious and subconscious, emphasizing how every step forward in life is shaped by the weight, or lightness, of memory. The film ultimately asks: how do our inner lives influence the paths we walk?
