This thesis is an attempt to reflect on my own creative process and put it in relation to  critical ideas and artworks that deals with themes of apocalypse, ecology and political theory. By doing this I hope to examine the role of apocalyptic narratives in our society today and see how my own film relates to these ideas. By putting my artistic process and film in relation to a theoretical framework I hope to discover new perspectives on aesthetics and how to tell an apocalyptic story in our day and age and how this relates to documentary filmmaking and digital culture.  To engage with a critical perspective on the ecological questions regarding my work I am taking help from thinkers such as the finish art historian and media professor Jussi Parikka and his ideas about geology of media where the earth crust itself can be considered a mediating force. I am also introducing the concept of buen vivir presented by the post-colonial theorist Rolando Vásques to critically examine the documentary process in Sápmi. Furthermore, I explore the religious idea of the holy fool who appears in the film from a societal perspective by turning to the media theorist Byung- Chul Han. I also make us of the theologian Ola Sigurdsons ideas about the transcendental power of comedy to understand the more comical sides of my filmmaking.  By putting these theoretical ideas against my practice I try to find an expanded understanding of the apocalyptic film genre and how the artistic process relates to healing and transformation in times of societal and existential crisis.

Scholars and storytellers alike have deemed George MacDonald a great mythopoeic writer, an exemplar of the art. Examination of this accolade by those who first applied it to him proves it profoundly theological: for them a mythopoeic tale was a relational medium through which transformation might occur, transcending boundaries of time and space. The implications challenge much contemporary critical study of MacDonald, for they demand that his literary life and his theological life cannot be divorced if either is to be adequately assessed. Yet they prove consistent with the critical methodology MacDonald himself models and promotes. Utilizing MacDonald’s relational methodology evinces his intentional facilitating of Mythopoesis. It also reveals how oversights have impeded critical readings both of MacDonald’s writing and of his character. It evokes a redressing of MacDonald’s relationship with his Scottish cultural, theological, and familial environment – of how his writing is a response that rises out of these, rather than, as has so often been asserted, a mere reaction against them. Consequently it becomes evident that key relationships, both literary and personal, have been neglected in MacDonald scholarship – relationships that confirm MacDonald’s convictions and inform his writing, and the examination of which restores his identity as a literature scholar. Of particular relational import in this reassessment is A.J. Scott, a Scottish visionary intentionally chosen by MacDonald to mentor him in a holistic Weltanschauung. Little has been written on Scott, yet not only was he MacDonald’s prime influence in adulthood, but he forged the literary vocation that became MacDonald’s own. Previously unexamined personal and textual engagement with John Ruskin enables entirely new readings of standard MacDonald texts, as does the textual engagement with Matthew Arnold and F.D. Maurice. These close readings, informed by the established context, demonstrate MacDonald’s emergence, practice, and intent as a mythopoeic writer.