Micky and the Whale is a creative re-examination of the story of Jonah, which exists in Christian, Islamic and Judaic tradition. It isolates out the episode in the big fish or whale and emphasises the theme of crisis, symbolic death, transformation and renewal. Micky and the Whale is based on a series of 75 original watercolours by Micky Allan, each 20 x 20 cm and made into a projection with narrative text and some animation.
Micky and the Whale reveals the sea and the creatures within it as a site of death and danger but also of mystery and renewal. It explores the question: ‘What might a contemporary expression of the interaction of the physical and meta-physical self be like?’ Can the transcendent be seen as ‘naturally’ immanent? Can the numinous and the everyday be one?
Bringing new perspectives to the old transformation story, Micky and the Whale uses the Jonah story as a metaphor for the natural cycles of life, both large and small, as well as for the rhythms of the process of creativity itself. Cycles of transformation and change are seen as continually repeating themselves. Transformation is seen as an ordinary and continual process, part of the natural evolution of consciousness and as well as the continual flux of life. The whale and the collaged figure of Micky finally synthesise and merge as a new cycle begins. At the end we are left with a sense of expansion and endless cycles of becoming rather than stasis or a fixed new state.
The myth is used to link personal emotional cycles with vaster cycles of nature ranging from the mundane shifts of daily experience to the rare intimations of the endless birth and death of universes. Unusually, the protagonist is female. Resonating a more contemporary perspective, she seeks finally to swim with the whale. Despite a serious undercurrent, the tone is intimate, personal, humorous and quirky. While often decorative, it aims also for gravitas. This very range is unusual, and accents the theme of unity in diversity and the continually repeating cycles towards becoming whole.
