Photo by Stella Mae
Here at Flaunt, we always keep an eye out for new talent as they make their way into the industry. One to watch is Vera Sola, an artist and musician and a former member of Elvis Perkins band, who has released her dreamy first track and music video for the song, _Small Minds,_ and will be debuting her album _Shades_ on November 9th. We caught up with the artist see how her pain and love created her other worldly offering.
**What is was the inspiration behind your new song?**
Small Minds is a very petty song about very real pain. It’s the most straightforward, the least encoded song on the record. I overheard the first line in an argument between a couple, and the rest of it unraveled quickly from there. It’s about deeply loving someone who’s disappearing. Wanting to hurt them because they’re hurting you, knowing you can level them rather flippantly with just a few swipes on a screen, but ultimately refraining—whether out of selfishness or selflessness. Your pick.
**Your video is so lush with texture where did those visuals come from?**
From the recording of the song I wanted the visuals to convey a sort of opulent decay. The degradation that comes with the power of technology: of our bodies, of possibility for meaningful connection, of any jab at true romance. And the loneliness of all that—the extreme and singular loneliness that comes with physically being with someone while they’re off in the cloud, in the ‘net, all webbed up somewhere else.
**What themes are you trying to explore through the visual work?**
Aware of the grand cliché of blaming lack of love on a smart phone, when it came to the video I wanted to avoid a real narrative and just hammer out pretty much every heavy-handed image that one could associate with the above topic—the obsession with hurt and hurting that stems from such longing. Imprisonment, obfuscation, drowning, burning, aimless wandering.
**What was the process for making the video, where was it shot?**
So I found an old wedding veil, reached out to the Canadian government, asked if I could shoot a video about “the cage of love” in a now-defunct landmark prison near my family home, crowdsourced and eBayed a few dozen cell phones, stomped on them, drowned in them, burned them up, and with the help of filmmaker Laura-Lynn Petrick shot the rest of the thing in and around the decaying surrealist landscape of the combination trailer park/House of Usher where I’ve spent a good deal of my life. And that was that.
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Written by Louisa Solarz
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