Andrew Black's 'On Clogger Lane' video essay explores memory and forgetting in North Yorkshire

Andrew Black's hourlong video essay 'On Clogger Lane' examines memory, forgetting, and historical erasure through the landscape of North Yorkshire. The work premiered at LUX in London from January 19 to March 10. Black employs documentary techniques including archival footage, oral histories, and amateur archaeology to explore submerged villages, flooded graveyards, and working-class histories. The film features interviews with local historians and former peace campaigners, including Anne, who protested the US surveillance activities at RAF Menwith Hill. Black incorporates a haunting soundtrack with drones, cymbals, and synthesized choral voices singing medieval poems about loss. Visual transitions from digital to decaying analog film emphasize historical decay. The film connects reservoir construction that erased communities with contemporary surveillance infrastructure, suggesting history becomes increasingly inaccessible despite preservation efforts.