Cistern:(2012) A woman wanders with a thin ladder down a rugged path that leads to a hidden cistern.  Her discovery becomes an experience of hidden memories and histories as she listens to the voices below.  Scribbling, she reaches out to the tactile crevices to respond. Rising from the chamber, she wavers with her means of egress, not sure of what she is leaving behind.  This short film was created in response to the discovery of a hidden realm below the earth near our home.  Revealed by a contemporary break in a water line, this ancient watervessel became a site of seclusion, meditation and reflection. This film also lives as part of an installation that uses PDLC film to obscure and reveal the images based on the viewer's pulse.

experimental short film  6’57” 2012

Video concept, cinematography, and post production: Claudia Esslinger
Performance/Choreography: Kora Radella
Text: Gretchen Henderson


Thanks to Jack Esslinger, Wendy Singer and David Lynn


From a recent review by Christopher Yates in the Columbus Dispatch:
"With mythic implications centering on death and rebirth, Claudia Esslinger’s video projection Cistern follows a woman who climbs in and out of a crumbling cistern. Underground, the woman writes notes on pieces of paper and stuffs them into cracks in the cistern’s stone walls. Her actions seem desperate, as if she is engaged in a futile effort to connect with the divine." 



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Cistern from Claudia Esslinger on Vimeo.