Almost Invisible Angels, Jay Griffiths & Sir Mark Rylance speak out in praise of insects

Insect populations are crashing so fast that entomologists are warning of increasing crop failures and broken food chains. According to a report in the journal Biological Conservation, a quarter of the world’s insects could be wiped out within just a decade, and in Britain alone, climate disruption and intensive farming have caused a 60% decline in flying insects in just 20 years.

To mark Insect Week, we are celebrating the tiny creatures on which human life depends by releasing a haunting short film by ecological writer Jay Griffiths and artist-activist Gaby Solly. Voiced by Sir Mark Rylance, Almost Invisible Angels is the latest in a series of collaborative artworks curated by Paint the Land, an initiative which links high-profile writers, with well-loved and emerging visual artists, to create rural and urban landscape art responding to the climate and ecological emergency.

“When I heard about the collapse of insect populations, I cried for three days,” Jay Griffiths writes in her blog. “I saw in one awful moment a vision of the desolated world, a devastated wasteland."

The idea for the film came to Jay in a dream: “I saw Tintern Abbey in it's woodland home, filled with insect-angels, and the Red Rebels: in this half-dream I half-heard the voice of Mark Rylance in my head. It was the tears and the song that his voice carries.”

Dreams tell us what we really know about something, what we really feel. Dreams are an awakening. In many spiritual traditions dreams are seen as rooted to our consciousness, and to ignore them would be to sever ourselves from our connected whole.

Dream of insects this week, and cherish them by campaigning against insecticides, joining a rewilding project, taking part in a bug survey:

https://www.buglife.org.uk/get-involv...

- or simply marvelling at their beauty.

#AlmostInvisibleAngels #Insectageddon #InsectWeek #PaintTheLand #NoInsectsNoFuture #RebugThePlanet #Buglife

This film has been made possible by the deep creativity, generosity, careful and loving contributions by our cast, crew, assistants, critics and supporters. Thank you all.

· Almost Invisible Angels is based on an original idea by the writer, Jay Griffiths

· Artist, Gaby Solly

· Actor, Mark Rylance

· Composers, Sam Lee & Anna Phoebe

· Film producers, Richard Maxwell & Jem Marryat of Aerovue

· Director of Photography, Samuel Perry-Falvey

· Production manager, Maia Wells

· Editor, Tom Canning

· Sound designer, Tobias Withers

· Graphics, Sara Martin Morante

· Producers, Liz Jensen & Kelly Hill of Writers Rebel

· CAST

· Doug Francisco, of Bristol's Invisible Circus

· The Red Rebel cast (Alex Edmunds, Angela MacCuish, Deb L. Bunker, Mia Schmidt-Hansen, Mary Mauleverer)

· The cast of Every-Persons (Celyn Idris, Ieuan Aspen, Krish Bhakerd, Maia Wells, Paul Healy, Peachy MacCuish, Sian Linden, Yemaya Rodriguez)

· CREW

· Costume Supervisor, Lou Gray

· Storyboard artist, Deb L. Bunker

· Andrew Darnton & XR Creative Circle

· Pascal Bidois, head custodian of Tintern Abbey

· Phill Haynes & the Wye Valley River Festival

· Insect specialist, Vicky Hird

· Sandy Creighton, Claire Rolls & Sarah Thorp of Bristol XR

· Rose Fenton

· Chris Lord-Smith

· Culture Declares Emergency

· CADW

· Tintern Village Hall

· Tidenham-Chase Village Hall

· Ferry Farm; Tintern

· Location stills photography, Kelly Hill