Hazel Barstow is a scenographer and visual artist fascinated by playful experimentation and the fusion of art in everyday places. Her works blend object theater, site-specific performance, and material processes. Barstow enjoys bringing things that are small or easily overlooked closer, attempting to make them seem instantly epic, searching for glimpses that shimmer between the spectacular and the unspectacular.
Thematically, her work often illuminates the relationship between the so-called natural and the so-called human world, and what it means to be human in relation to other species.
MICROCOSMOS is a film for the whole family that undeniably has a unique ability to awaken the child within us adults. It brings us down to our knees, pushes our fingers back into the soil, through the grass, and into the bark of the trees. It allows us to lie on our backs, gaze up at the leaves, and spend time down here, where there is a bustling life and an overwhelming number of exciting little dramas unfolding.
A film that compels us to observe and study, to be fascinated and admire the multitude of tiny creatures and oddities that our otherworldly world holds.