The Breath of Sheep 1970

Overview

In Düsseldorf-based filmmaker Lutz Mommartz’s Das Atem des Schafes (The Breath of the Sheep, 1970) we see Scotland as an outsider. Recorded on a trip to the Highlands ahead of his participation in Strategy: Get Arts – a landmark exhibition at Edinburgh College of Art – Mommartz’s 8mm film testifies to the Scottish imaginary that preceded self-representation. Mist-wrapped mountains and a maggot-infested sheep carcass are soundtracked by stretched-out psychedelia, encoding this as a place of wildn