Totemica (2026)

The full film, now available to watch

For those who missed the closing party of Inner Worlds at Seventh Circle this summer, I've finally released the full 15-minute film Totemica on YouTube.

The film was originally created for Inner Worlds, a collaborative exhibition between myself and fellow artist Tara Harris, exploring the inner worlds that exist within our work.

Created entirely in Adobe After Effects, Totemica takes elements from both our paintings and brings them into motion. Faces shift and distort, landscapes dissolve, forms overlap and disappear. It's an exploration of what happens when you take something static, like a painting, and allow it to move, change and become something else entirely.

A response to sound

The film was developed in response to Belonging (Remix) by Birmingham-based experimental band Cries from the LTN.

The music became the backbone of the animation, influencing its pace, movement and atmosphere. I also introduced additional sound effects throughout, building layers of sound alongside the visuals.

Words and fragments of sentences drift through the film, drawing on some of the writing and ideas that appeared in the Inner Worlds exhibition catalogue.

Some things return without ever leaving.

Nothing exists in only one form.

These fragments appear and disappear throughout the animation, sometimes repeating, sometimes becoming lost amongst the imagery.

As the film progresses, the movement and sound become increasingly intense, building towards a crescendo around the words Nothing exists alone, before gradually breaking apart, distorting and eventually dissolving into the mist.

There's a deliberate sense of things never quite settling, of images and ideas continually shifting between one state and another.

From the exhibition to the screen

Totemica was screened during Digbeth First Fridays and again at the closing party of Inner Worlds in July 2026.

It was an opportunity to bring together painting, animation, typography and experimental music into one piece, extending the exhibition beyond the physical paintings on the walls.

With Inner Worlds now behind us, and my latest exhibition Inner States continuing some of those explorations, it feels like a good time to finally release the film in full.

So, for anyone who didn't get the chance to see it over the summer, here it is.

Watch Totemica (2026), the full 15-minute film on YouTube.

Film, animation and sound design: Emma Woolley
Artwork: Emma Woolley and Tara Harris
Music: Belonging (Remix), Cries from the LTN
Created for: Inner Worlds, Seventh Circle, Birmingham, 2026