ABOUT DUST SEEDING

We could not see and now we can not see

 

This experimental video-essay is the first (video) work I created that concerns the aesthetic impact of climate change. When we visited Nepal earlier this year and we went to meet some of my in-laws, I got struck by how the valley right by their home was filled with dust that clouded the entire view. The air was brown and sight taken away. Apparently, the drought that results in this dust cloud is relatively new and can stay for weeks in a row. Climate change. Back home, during my three-month working period at NS16, this motivated me to try to recreate this effect, this image, this feeling. It soon turned out to be too difficult to do successfully. This resulted in the video becoming about the attempt and in (re)creating a semi-fictional narrative that questions this aesthetic impact of climate change that is rarely discussed. What about those who lose their views, those sights so familiar to them? 

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Five short chapters philosophically discuss different aspects of sand and dust, of drought and rain, of weather manipulation and war, of art and nature, and ends with the definition of dust seeding that I created that relates to our human connection to this all. The video-essay plays with the notions of being able to see, literally and figuratively - it can be read both normatively and poetically. It tells about how it might be too late to see the effects of our actions; how our sight might be clouded; how our views might change; how we are connected to the natural world; how the natural world can be magical; how not-seeing might mean being able to finally see. 

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we could not see

In addition, I also created my first work with glass. I fused white and transparant glass to spell out the title that became part of the presentation-installation. It both functions as a (sub)title and as a work on its own. The words have the possibility to change order and therefore change meaning and/or interpretation and therewith emphasise the role of language in relation to being able to see or understand.