“Generational Transmission” brings together British singer-songwriter Marsha Swanson and Iranian filmmaker Sam Chegini in a claymation video that hits differently than your typical music release. This isn’t just visual accompaniment to a song. It’s a meditation on inherited trauma and how we might break those cycles, told through the malleable medium of clay.

Chegini’s animation gives weight to what Swanson explores in her lyrics. You can see it in how the clay figures move, how hands shape and reshape forms, how roots tangle together before characters push through their constraints. There’s something about the tactile quality of claymation that makes the metaphors land harder. These aren’t smooth digital effects. They’re handmade, imperfect, vulnerable.

The pairing makes sense when you learn Swanson studied psychology. Her songwriting digs into internal landscapes, asking questions about what we inherit emotionally from the people who raised us. Chegini takes those introspective moments and gives them form. The cinematic strings and piano create space for the visuals to breathe, and the whole thing feels like watching therapy unfold in miniature.

What stays with you is how specific it feels while still leaving room for your own interpretation. Every frame seems deliberate. You find yourself thinking about your own family patterns, the things passed down without anyone quite meaning to. The video invites that kind of reflection without forcing it.

Swanson and Chegini have made something that crosses cultural and creative boundaries. It’s a reminder that pain travels through generations, yes, but so does the possibility of healing. The video doesn’t offer easy answers. It just holds space for the complexity of breaking cycles while honoring where we come from. Long after it ends, you’re still sitting with it

Check it out here.