WHITEY ON THE MARS | 2023 | GER Nochten, Weißwasser + PL Łęknica
Whitey on the Mars is an allusion to Gil Scott-Heron's spoken word poem ‘Whitey on the Moon’ from 1970, which questions the social and economic conditions in which the mostly black American population finds itself at the time of the Apollo moon landing.
Where are we over half a century later? What has changed? The efforts to colonise Mars (Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and others) are just the next step in a sequence of colonised thinking. In persuing the dream of a newly colonised world, we are only suppressing catastrophes and problems that we are confronted with in the very concrete reality of our planet in order to reproduce them further.
Lignite has been mined in Lusatia for over 150 years. Efforts are being made to bring forward the coal phase-out to 2030, but Leag is acquiring more land in order to expand the Nochten open-cast mine. The village of Mühlrose is under threat and is being successively demolished. Further forest areas are to be cleared and the open-cast mine is to expand towards the villages of Mulkwitz and Rohne. The result is not only the destruction of human habitats and their resettlement, but also the destruction of important habitats for flora and fauna, which leads to a further decline in biodiversity.
The work captures moments of Central European landscapes and combines them into a narrative continuum. Landscapes alienated and destroyed by industry intertwine with moments of supposedly intact ‘nature’. One of the most drastic moments can be felt in coal mining. The large-scale removal of layers of earth from the Lusatian landscape forms worlds that realise dreams of inhabiting Mars not in a far future, but in this very moment. Undefinable machines move through deserts, while moments of animation take place on the periphery. People can be found in industrial wastelands, albino deer run through a field, cattle graze in a meadow landscape. They present themselves as silent wonders in a wounded world.
Where are we over half a century later? What has changed? The efforts to colonise Mars (Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and others) are just the next step in a sequence of colonised thinking. In persuing the dream of a newly colonised world, we are only suppressing catastrophes and problems that we are confronted with in the very concrete reality of our planet in order to reproduce them further.
Lignite has been mined in Lusatia for over 150 years. Efforts are being made to bring forward the coal phase-out to 2030, but Leag is acquiring more land in order to expand the Nochten open-cast mine. The village of Mühlrose is under threat and is being successively demolished. Further forest areas are to be cleared and the open-cast mine is to expand towards the villages of Mulkwitz and Rohne. The result is not only the destruction of human habitats and their resettlement, but also the destruction of important habitats for flora and fauna, which leads to a further decline in biodiversity.
The work captures moments of Central European landscapes and combines them into a narrative continuum. Landscapes alienated and destroyed by industry intertwine with moments of supposedly intact ‘nature’. One of the most drastic moments can be felt in coal mining. The large-scale removal of layers of earth from the Lusatian landscape forms worlds that realise dreams of inhabiting Mars not in a far future, but in this very moment. Undefinable machines move through deserts, while moments of animation take place on the periphery. People can be found in industrial wastelands, albino deer run through a field, cattle graze in a meadow landscape. They present themselves as silent wonders in a wounded world.