Margaret Salmon creates filmic portraits that weave together poetry and ethnography. Focusing on individuals in their everyday habitats, her films capture the minutiae of daily life and infuse them with gentle grandeur, touching upon universal human themes. Inspired by classic not-fiction and propaganda film, Salmon portrays the common struggle of ordinary people and intersects them with archetypal figures and great literary dramas.
Margaret Salmon’s work ‘Guns Trilogy’ (2008) consists of three films played simultaneously. Each film takes the form of a story told by a man that circles around the use of a gun at some point in his life. Each film might be understood as an individual portrait but the way they merge with one another suggests something larger. The gun becomes symbolic of choices, actions and consequences that structure each protagonist’s life.
