Thalia

Thalia portrays a female apparition picking leaves from between flowers.  She forages on overgrown land in the shadow of an abandoned factory in present-day Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Thalia is the muse of idyllic poetry and comedy in Greek mythology.  Engaard used analog home video cameras because of their natural Impressionistic picture qualities.  He preserved the video’s pixels to include its natural texture and took advantage of the cameras’ unique ways of capturing light and movement.  Thalia is one of nine (9) videos in the series entitled "Mnemosyne", named after the Greek goddess of memory and mother of the muses.  The series explores memorialization, nostalgic impulses, and forgotten ideas.