Origin of The Species (‘An exploration into the nature of the world via the extraordinary S, who lives in the wilderness) (2008)

With an affection for utopian novels like Sir Francis Bacon’s The New Atlantis and Mary Shelley’s The Last Man, Rivers’s work blends aspects of fiction and reality in a subversive and poetic manner. His work focuses on lone individuals and small insular communities on the fringes of society, from hermetic existences found deep in the Scottish countryside to post-apocalyptic island ecosystems.

The passing of time is a preoccupation of many of Rivers’s subjects. In Origin of The Species subtitled: ‘An exploration into the nature of the world via the extraordinary S, who lives in the wilderness’, we hear S. musing on his immediate world and the wider universe: on evolution, quantum physics, and the uncertain future of the human race, while Rivers’s camera explores his wooden hut, his drawings for inventions and the bracken filled woods that surround him. Conceived as a companion piece, Ah, Liberty! is a mesmerising study of a family’s place in the wilderness. Working and playing on a farm in the Scottish highlands throughout the seasons, it captures an untamed sense of freedom, undercut with a sense of foreboding.

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