A multi-screen cinematic installation by Lydia Dean Pilcher (Brooklyn, NY) based on the story by Dani McClain (Cincinnati, OH) from the anthology, Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements.
In the near future, two friends contemplate a federal mandate requiring residents of coastal areas to relocate within 30 days due to an extreme rise in sea level. McClain’s story asks Where do we go when the fantasy of the infinite is no more? As a filmmaker, Pilcher was intrigued by this and other questions posed in the story, including how to define and choose home during times of crisis and destabilization. In this dramatic narrative, characters played by Barrett Doss (Station 19, Grey’s Anatomy) and Kineta Kunutu (The Blacklist, Citidel) explore the roles of government, authority, and the individual as they face climate catastrophe and reimagine their futures.
Pilcher and McClain assert that fossil-fuel dependence and resource depletion demand not only economic and political solutions but also narrative solutions. “Letting go of the shore” is a reference to a metaphorical river discussed between the friends, a way to imagine overcoming fear and trusting the unknown. Homing Instinct: Letting Go of the Shore uses the language of dance to traverse a world of realism, dreams, and the metaphysical.
