“In San Diego Zoo, a world unseen, Chester zoo emerges, a mirrored dream... Across oceans vast, day or night, San Diego and Chester – two worlds the same – where slumbers’ whispers bring no shame...”

The film Wild Whispers is a response by artists Estelle Woolley and Luke Moore to photographs taken by Stephen Clarke during his travels to San Diego Zoo in 1987. Here, the connection between San Diego and Chester zoos – oceans apart physically – is explored through the metaphorical connection of animals to the human subconscious. In soft, haunting tones Woolley experiments with the possibilities of ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) – the physical reaction to stimulating media, often manifested as a calm, tingling sensation. Her whispered poem, created using AI technology, connects the physicality of human responses to technological stimuli with the natural and uninhibited life of animals – imagination is a fundamental aspect of this physical response.

Clarke’s black-and-white animal photographs are captured in a dreamlike succession of images by Moore’s video editing, highlighting the capabilities of our subconscious to free us from the psychological cages that bind and set us on an imaginative exploration of our physical nature. Our animal selves constitute humanity’s universality; the power of our imagination connects us across time and space.

“Let the whispers guide you far and wide to dreamscapes where animals softly reside ...”

Text by Dr Hannah Harry