TART is pleased to announce the debut of Transformations, a video work by Stephen Sutcliffe (in collaboration with the Glasgow band Hasslehound). The piece is based on the Thomas Hardy poem of the same name and TART will expand on that theme by creating a reading room devoted to the Hardy tradition in British and American poetry.

Hardy's poems are innovative, proto-modernist works and although often dark and pessimistic, Transformations is one of his more life affirming verses. Sutcliffe's Transformations is a lyrical memento where the search for a pastoral idyll is explored and the unbalanced nature of existence revealed. The work's soundtrack, a recital of the poem, incidental voices and Hasslehound's music, creates a haunting rythmic layering that suggests an internal dialogue.