Screening of three films by Tita Salina & Irwan Ahmett, Bianca Kennedy & The Swan Collective, and Elisophie Eulenburg, which deal with the subject of water as a resource and the question of how humans will treat their environment in the future. Afterwards, the artists discuss their films with two experts, who each have an own approach to the film contents from their field of expertise:
Dr. Caissa Revilla Minaya, environmental anthropologist, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, expert in environmental indigenous perceptions and practices of the Amazonian region of Peru
Stefanie Werner, German Environment Agency (UBA), expert for the protection of the marine environment with a focus on maritime pollution with plastic waste and underwater noise.
Moderation: Caroline Ektander, architect, writer and researcher with an unrelenting interest in understanding (- and engaging with) waste practices and politics in a time of ecological crisis.
The event takes place in English. Questions may be asked in German. The films have German subtitles.
Admission to the event is free of charge. Limited number of participants.
Prior registration via e-mail is required: kunstvermittlung@leipzig.de
Please wear a protective mask.
THE MOVIES
The Lives Beneath
Bianca Kennedy & The Swan Collective
Stop-motion, 3D animation & real live footage, 18:27 min, 2018
The collaborative work by Bianca Kennedy & The Swan Collective deals with speculative visions of the further course of evolution in model installations, films, and publications. Their film The Lives Beneath depicts a world in the year 4000. Plants, animals, and human beings form a worldwide super-network of consciousness. The few remaining non-hybrid humans have become obsolete for nature’s plans and are forced to live underwater in floating shiplike cities. The Lives Beneath examines the downfall of a society that refuses to live in harmony with nature. But on the other side there is a self-conscious planet, which suffers from the burden of having to think for all eternity.
Harvest from Atlantis
Tita Salina & Irwan Ahmett
Video, 11min38, 2019
Tita Salina & Irwan Ahmett’s artistic approach is based on their local realities of life in Jakarta—a megacity with 15 million inhabitants—and the urban and ecological crises there. Rivers coming from tropical forests in the mountains used to feed Jakarta Bay with a lot of nutrients, but now the condition is heavily damaged by pollution. In collaboration with local green mussel farmers, the artists planted a tree under polluted seawater and waited for mussels to grow on it. The green of the mussels is reminiscent of foliage in tropical forests, which are increasingly disappearing due to deforestation. The project reflects the hope and concern as the city faces the threat of sinking.
Tomorrow’s Program
Elisophie Eulenburg
Docu-fiction, 31 min, 2013/14
Following a devastating natural catastrophe, a number of people have found refuge in an isolated place in the middle of nowhere. In a synthetic atmosphere of colourful carpets, fake bookshelves, and plastic plants, things obey strange gravitational forces. While objects constantly totter dangerously, people have adapted to their self-created, unstable living environment. The film tells the contradictory story of a struggle for survival through fact and fiction. With anthropological observations and interviews, the artist examines the ambivalent relationship of the human being with nature on a 21st century cruise ship and in a projected future.
This satellite event at Kunsthaus ACUD Berlin is part of the event program of the exhibition Zero Waste at Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig: https://mdbk.de/ausstellungen/zero-waste/
Photo credit:
Elisophie Eulenburg, Tomorrow´s Program, 2013/2014, docu-fiction, HD video 16:9, 31 min, video still, © Elisophie Eulenburg