I haven’t quite decided what I want to do but here are some ideas I want to think about a bit longer. I will be updating this over the next week but for now I want to use this platform as a way of tracking ideas.
I am interested in the relation of social and ecological transformation.
I want to explore the codependency between an exhausted landscape and humans.
Mining Towns: i visited Viivikonna in 2020, a mining town that was built, partly through forced labour. After the WWII around 1800 people lived there. Nowadays only about 50 people remain. Income is low. People are old. Most houses are dilapidated. Some people also say it’s haunted. The feeling was
Erschöpfte Landschaften
I was thinking about the notion of „erschöpfte Landschaften“ (exhausted landscapes). I understand it in a sense of finite resources but also in a sense of a social drain, of a landscape that Francisco Martinez and Marika Agu call landscapes of ‚no more’. How do you describe these landscapes without romanticizing the decay.
To research further: There is an increase of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic media outlet which seems very zeitgeisty. But why are people so lusty for it? Also dark tourism, ‚lost places‘, etc. Are there archives of oilshale mining?
I will be going to Sillamäe before the excursion for some days. I am particularly interested in the atomic heritage of the city and post-socialist developments. I also find black shale as a material very intriguing. Legend has it that black shale was used to extract uranium during the first extractions in Sillamäe during soviet times. The ne
There is a statue of Prometheus bringing the atom that was erected 2 years after the catastrophe in Chernobyl.
Methods
On the one hand I have an interest that is more driven by the material of oil shale, black shale and ash, on the other hand I like archival material, interviews. I work with sound, video and clay. One piece focuses on unburnt clay and water and the acoustic event that happens when both meet. I am very interested in the self-cementing properties of oil-shale ash and am wondering how complex this process is and if it’s feasible to experiment with that. I could imagine that it’s also an acoustically interesting event but also in the context of an afterlife of the waste. I could imagine that it is also interesting to experiment with the self cementing process and use a hydrophone to record. All in all I would like to weave a thread between social and ecological transformation.
Literature
Eeva Kesküla (2018): Waste People/Value Producers: Ambiguity, Indeterminacy, and Postsocialist Russian-Speaking Miners.
Martínez , Francisco and Marika Agu. 2021. “Postcards from the Edge: Territorial Sacrifice and Care in Eastern Estonia.” Roadsides 5: 68-75. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26034/ roadsides-202100510.
Bauer, Elisabeth and Tappe, Jonathan (2018): Ölschiefer in Estland: Fossile Politik im Vorreiterland. URL: https://www.kas.de/documents/252038/253252/7_dokument_dok_pdf_51934_1.pdf.
Hade, Sigrid and Soesoo, Alvar (2014): GRAPTOLITE ARGILLITES REVISITED: A FUTURE RESOURCE?
Artist references will follow...