How to Build a Forest
(2022), single channel cine-essay, 16mm
dir. Jenn Tran | 06”34’ | AUSTRALIA
Centering her perspective from Agnes Denes' land artwork 'A Forest For Australia' (1998), a scientist from a distant future returns to Earth to understand how her colony might build its first forest. What begins as a scientific mission becomes a meditation on place, memory and the weight of progress.
director, animator, producer: Jenn Tran
writers: Kelly Bartholomeusz, Jenn Tran
sound designer, composer: Mara Schwerdferger
camera operator, cinematographer: Veronica Charmont
voice over: Jessica Douglas-Henry
16mm processing & scanning: nanolab,MEMEORY Lab, Jordan James Kaye
additional support: Damien Laing, HRAFF & Directors Circle, Footscray Community Arts, Robert Stephenson, Docklands Library Makerspace, OPEN Lab, SOUND KITCHEN, Scout Management, Greater Western Water
Comissioned by Human Rights & Arts Film Festival
dir. Jenn Tran | 06”34’ | AUSTRALIA
Centering her perspective from Agnes Denes' land artwork 'A Forest For Australia' (1998), a scientist from a distant future returns to Earth to understand how her colony might build its first forest. What begins as a scientific mission becomes a meditation on place, memory and the weight of progress.
director, animator, producer: Jenn Tran
writers: Kelly Bartholomeusz, Jenn Tran
sound designer, composer: Mara Schwerdferger
camera operator, cinematographer: Veronica Charmont
voice over: Jessica Douglas-Henry
16mm processing & scanning: nanolab,MEMEORY Lab, Jordan James Kaye
additional support: Damien Laing, HRAFF & Directors Circle, Footscray Community Arts, Robert Stephenson, Docklands Library Makerspace, OPEN Lab, SOUND KITCHEN, Scout Management, Greater Western Water
Comissioned by Human Rights & Arts Film Festival
The Formation of a Cloud
Director, Writer: Jenn Tran
Voice Over: Vicky Lam
Super 8 Camera Operator: Veronica Charmont
Composer, Sound Designer: Mara Schwerdtfeger
Supervising Producers: Robert Stephenson, Paul Fletcher
Online Edit: Andrew Conell
Sound Mix: Ant Bohun
The Formation of a Cloud OST
(2020), single channel cine-essay, Super 8 and digital
dir. Jenn Tran | 06”13’ | AUSTRALIA
BFA Graduate Film
Depicted through a mix of stop-motion animation and super-8 film, The Formation of a Cloud revisits a distant and seemingly innocent childhood memory of a ford crossing located in the western suburbs of Melbourne. A meditative journey of revisitation and discovery, the short film maps the past through four handmade dioramas, chronicling memory through the gazes of place, family and beginings and endings, just like the formations of clouds.
dir. Jenn Tran | 06”13’ | AUSTRALIA
BFA Graduate Film
Depicted through a mix of stop-motion animation and super-8 film, The Formation of a Cloud revisits a distant and seemingly innocent childhood memory of a ford crossing located in the western suburbs of Melbourne. A meditative journey of revisitation and discovery, the short film maps the past through four handmade dioramas, chronicling memory through the gazes of place, family and beginings and endings, just like the formations of clouds.
Pooch Mountain
(2025), single channel animation, stop motion Super 8
dir. Jenn Tran | 02”00’ | AUSTRALIA
dir. Jenn Tran | 02”00’ | AUSTRALIA
God is in the Mountains
Funded by SIGNAL Arts, City of Melbourne.
Music by Luke Morton
Photography Lu Spent
SIGNAL Mentor: Aaron Christopher Rees
Music by Luke Morton
Photography Lu Spent
SIGNAL Mentor: Aaron Christopher Rees
(2021), single channel animation, 3D digital loop
dir. Jenn Tran | 01”00’ | AUSTRALIA
While lithium-ion batteries are projected to power our green future, I question whose territories will be left powerless in this contradictory return. Reading Todd C. Frankel’s Washington Post investigation into lithium-ion supply chains, I learn that the mining of manganese, cobalt, lithium, and graphite relies on the extreme exploitation of basic human rights.
In this examination of power—both industrial and metaphorical—I position the battery as a quasi-religious entity. Through composited, looped animations set against Google-blue skies, it becomes a traveller across power, environment, territory, and technology.
As one farmer affected by graphite mining reflects, “God is in the mountains. When mining comes and the grassland is dug up, people believe worse disasters will follow. It destroys the mountain god.”
dir. Jenn Tran | 01”00’ | AUSTRALIA
While lithium-ion batteries are projected to power our green future, I question whose territories will be left powerless in this contradictory return. Reading Todd C. Frankel’s Washington Post investigation into lithium-ion supply chains, I learn that the mining of manganese, cobalt, lithium, and graphite relies on the extreme exploitation of basic human rights.
In this examination of power—both industrial and metaphorical—I position the battery as a quasi-religious entity. Through composited, looped animations set against Google-blue skies, it becomes a traveller across power, environment, territory, and technology.
As one farmer affected by graphite mining reflects, “God is in the mountains. When mining comes and the grassland is dug up, people believe worse disasters will follow. It destroys the mountain god.”
Small Frame
Saturday 11 April 2026
Saturday 16 May 2026
(2026), Curator ‘Small Frame’— Emerging Curator’s Programme
Firstdraft Gallery | NSW, AUSTRALIA
Firstdraft Gallery | NSW, AUSTRALIA
Experimental animation has largely been produced independently, often alongside a submission to visible process and material knowledge. Different animation techniques yield distinct workflows that forge a symbiotic yet chaotic relationship between technique, time, materials, repetition, and intuition. Everything is broken down into frames: motion is counted, labour is accumulated, and time is measured in frames per second.
From pencil and frame to pixel and codec, animation has largely been situated within commercial contexts. In experimental animation, processes become foundational to meaning, prioritising the use of visual practice beyond the institutional polish that constructs commercial animation. Here, Small Frame bookmarks a new assembly of experimental animated works that foreground technique and material in physical space.
Small Frame explores a group of works using techniques and materials such as hand knitting, generative sculpture, and Nintendo DS Flipnote, while discussing the relationship between the preliminary draft and the final animation. Curated by Jenn Tran, Small Frame brings together artists Jent Do, Milly Yencken, Quinn Franks, Eleanor Evans, and Tiff Yue — independent animators and artists working and recognised across Australia and internationally.
Images courtesy Jessica Maurer.
