This Rented Shell

This Rented Shell is a poetic exploration of memory—both intimate and collective.

Spoken poetry, evocative imagery and sound design merge with animation to create an immersive space where memory is felt as much as it is seen. Are memories ours alone, or do we exist as curators of inherited histories? This is the profound question David Gardener asks in this poetic and anthropological meditation on time, identity, and human experience.

The film follows characters who collect, lose, and reconstruct fragments of their past. Scenes frequently blur and distort, capturing the tension between what is remembered and what fades and echoing the complexity of human perception. Memory itself takes shape as a “rented shell”: a body, an object or a space, both fragile and resilient, that houses personal and shared experiences. Beyond personal experience, Gardener interrogates cultural memory, highlighting the ways humans inherit, interpret, and preserve memory across generations.

The film version will be a fulldome projection captured during a performance.