A mythic ecological film in development that grows from documentary research, scientific listening and the poetic imagination. It traces a northern fairytale of kinship, extinction and return, carried by the voices of Arctic lands, animals and communities.
The work is rooted in field journeys through northern and Arctic regions, where conservation scientists, Indigenous knowledge holders and ecologists study the changing lives of wolves, reindeer, seals, bears, foxes and birds. These encounters become the ground from which the film’s mythic world emerges. The documentary research listens to the way animals communicate, migrate and dream through ice, snow and wind, and it follows the subtle transformations that shape their worlds as the climate warms.
From this embodied study rises a contemporary fairytale. It unfolds as a poetic passage through snow, stars and animal memory, where human and more than human worlds gather into a single field of attention. Within this field a young being begins a journey to find her wolf mother, guided by the voices and movements of the animals who share the land with her.
Her path carries her into the presence of the Arctic snow moth who draws her into the realm of seven moons. In this realm she meets four beings who guard the constellations of forgotten voices.
Through these encounters she begins to listen to the languages of wind, fur, water and ice. She learns to hear the rhythms that hold wolves together across vast landscapes, the subtle tones of migrating herds, the underwater songs of seals beneath thinning ice, and the faint wingbeats that signal seasonal return.
The film draws these threads together. Scientific observation and animal study provide the factual heartbeat of the work. Mythic imagination opens a wider horizon where ecological grief becomes a story of transformation. Through both paths the film searches for ways that humans may restore presence, care and vitality to beings whose lives have been muted by centuries of extraction and ecological amnesia.
Ho Ho Haya Haya Lo hoi hoi
She is the newer being, that which eats time
She is older then the song that sang her
Her teeth are solid tears of the voice
her mother river gave her to put them there
she said, keep them to bite with your white voice
dark voice
roll, run, run, run, run, hoya hoya
Vision and Context
The Wolf Mother and The Seven Moons arises from a longing to soften the human story and to step into a wider field where story becomes ecological knowledge. The film grows from documentary research with conservation scientists, animal ecologists, sound researchers, and Indigenous advisors across Arctic and sub Arctic regions. These encounters offer a grounded understanding of how wolves navigate vast tundras, how seals sing beneath ice, how wind carries signals between species, and how warming seasons reshape the acoustic ecology of the North.
From this research the mythic dimension is explored and the work asks: What if myth could become a method of repair? What if a fairytale could awaken attention to the unseen relationships that sustain the Earth?
The film draws upon traditional ecological knowledge, Arctic cosmologies, Sámi philosophies of yoiking, and the living studies of animals and their habitats. Wolves, snowmelt flowers, seals, owls, and guardians of the night sky gather as guides who carry intelligence across the threshold between worlds.
Through imagery and sound, the film explores the psychoacoustic memory of place: how snow breathes, how ice holds tone, how animal calls shape the movements of landscapes, and how listening becomes an act of kinship. Yoiking offers a path here: a way of singing one’s relationship with a being or a place, a sonic practice that aligns perfectly with ecological empathy and scientific listening.
The North appears as a living cosmology, a field of luminous interdependence where the movements of stars, ice, animals, and wind form a single organism of memory and presence. Amulets, ice growths, fur traces, and ancient sounds arise from the deep memory of matter, guiding the film’s unfolding.
Methodology and Approach
The film combines documentary research, ecological fieldwork, ritual performance, movement, and sonic investigation with experimental cinematic forms. The methodology develops through time spent on the land, through listening practices with wild species, and through conversation with ecologists, Indigenous communities, and conservation researchers.
The work unfolds across three interwoven modes:
Encounters with scientists, wildlife biologists, sound ecologists, Indigenous knowledge holders, and conservation initiatives. Field trips to observe wolves, raindeer, seals, foxes, and birds; acoustic studies of ice resonance and wind; and the collection of ecological recordings that reveal how animals communicate and adapt to a warming world.
Movement practices, somatic listening, and site-responsive performance in Arctic territories. Working with snow, ice, rocks, wind, and animal traces to understand how the body responds to the rhythm of northern landscapes.
From these lived encounters the mythic story begins to take shape. Documentary traces transform into dream imagery. Scientific observations merge with ancestral cosmologies. Sound and image become portals into a fairytale of kinship, extinction, and return.
Core Creative Methods
Mythopoetic Script Development
Drawing from northern cosmologies, animal studies, environmental data, fairytales, and oral histories to craft a script that functions as a ritual journey across land, species, and time.Embodied Fieldwork
Practices of somatic awareness and ecological listening carried out in Arctic and sub Arctic environments. Movement with snowfields, frozen rivers, cliffs, coastlines, and tundra, and encounters with animal tracks, fur, breath, and silence.Sound as Ecological Invocation
Collecting environmental and species-specific sounds using parabolic, hydrophone, contact, and low-frequency microphones. Exploring psychoacoustic properties of ice, wind, and animal movement. Creating sculptural body-responsive instruments that resonate with northern environments and conservation research.Collaboration with Indigenous and Ecological Knowledge Holders
Working with Indigenous artists, musicians, community members, ecologists, wildlife researchers, and conservation centers. Shaping an ethical framework for listening, storytelling, representation, and land-based inquiry.Film as Ceremony
Building a visual and sonic language that treats cinematic experience as offering. Using imagery and sound to create a space where humans may encounter the wisdom, fragility, and presence of more than human life.Thematic Terrain
Animal Kinship and Rewilding
Honouring Arctic animals as carriers of ancestral intelligence and ecological balance. Integrating conservation science and traditional ecological knowledge with mythic portrayal.Extinction and Renewal
Responding to the silencing of species and habitats by inviting their voices, movements, and rhythms back into the imaginative fabric of the world.Communication Across Worlds
Exploring how humans may re-learn the faculty of listening to other beings through scientific attention, sonic study, and mythic imagination.Assimilation into Place
The human protagonist gradually dissolves into the living fabric of the Arctic, learning to move with the rhythm of wolves, wind, ice, and stars.Constellations and Memory
Stars, snow crystals, and ice formations act as mnemonic and ecological maps. They guide the protagonist through the realms of loss, transformation, and return.Artistic and Cultural Contribution
The film positions myth and fairytale as technologies of perception, ways of reawakening relational imagination.
It contributes to the emerging field of eco-mythological cinema, where storytelling becomes a means of listening and repair. By integrating indigenous song traditions (yoik) and the psychoacoustics of Arctic environments, the film creates a sonic landscape that breathes a listening field.
Through this, we open to the silent continuities between beings, elements, and human longing.
The work expands Human Clay’s vision of art as ecological offering, carrying its southern, earth-rooted sensibilities into the crystalline north, a gesture of kinship with the polar and animal worlds.
The project is positioned as both an artistic fairytale and an ecological invocation, extending Human Clay CIC’s practice into dialogue with Arctic mythologies, conservation networks, and the rewilding of human perception.
Current Stage and Strategic Development
The film is at its conceptual and research stage.
In the next two years, we aim to establish partnerships with institutions and artists across the Nordic and Arctic regions, including centres for wildlife research, indigenous culture, and environmental arts as well as seeking development funding and residencies. More on Residency and partnership development link