Three-channel video and sound installation, 38 minutes

Out Of Our Earth is an exploration of leaving- home, a friend, a country, our planet- and blends experience of migration and elements of science fiction with the musings of potential space travellers, who reflect their inner life onto outer space. The work is a chorus of voices with parallel narratives focused on women’s experience, navigating the desire to escape oppression and the pull of home.

The work features words and music from Even You Song, an apocryphal choral evensong based on interviews about space flight. The film’s narrative is structured as a Welcome and Three Parts that echo the decision-making process from disquiet to dreaming, into belief. The work incorporates imagery of the artist’s daughter, Afro-futurist Sun Ra and comic-book character Halo Jones, who leaves Earth and her friend to go into space.

WE ARE HERE, exhibition text, Sarah Wood 2025

CREDITS:

Bettina Furnée: Scipt, Editor, Voice-over
Lottie Lou Poulet: Voice-over recording, Dialogue and Sfx editor, Music editor, Re-recording engineer
Jamie Denny & Cameron Turnbull: Camera Operators
James Smith: Sound recording Peterborough Cathedral
Sasha Furnée Horton: Animations. Photo model, Photo editor

Music from: Even You Song Bettina Furnée & Lucy Sheerman 2017
Composer: Cheryl Frances-Hoad
Libretto: Lucy Sheerman
Performed by: Peterborough Cathedral Choir & school choirs
Director: Steven Grahl
Organ: David Humphreys

Text and images from: Interviews with couples from Peterborough about a space journey
Found text and image: The Ballad of Halo Jones Alan Moore and Ian Gibson 1984
Film and music samples: Space Is The Place Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Solar Arkestra 1974