Out of the Blue

Four European organizations in a joint project that brings together artists, environmentalists and local communities. Together with the CAMPO arts centre in Ghent (Belgium), Freies Werkstatt Theater in Cologne (Germany) and the Sciaena association in Faro (Portugal), we invite you to a series of events under the theme “Buried Secrets: Responses to Raw Materials Exploitation.” It takes up the theme of the exploitation of the Earth’s natural resources in the Anthropocene era and the associated risks.

The centerpiece of the program is a performance from the Campo Arts Center – “Out of the Blue.” A duo of Belgian artists – Silke Huysmans and Hannes Dereere – takes the audience 4,500 meters into the depths of the ocean, where the search for deposits of precious metals is underway. In the spring of 2021, three ships appeared in the remote waters of the Pacific. The first belonged to the Belgian company Deme-Gsr, which explores the bottom in search of natural resources. The second crew consisted of an international team of biologists and geologists looking at the operation. The third ship was the notorious “Rainbow Warrior,” owned by Greenpeace activists who protest overexploitation of the Earth.
From their apartment in Brussels, Silke and Hannes connected with the three ships via satellite. The conversations the artists had with the crews show the phenomenon, which is deep-sea mining, in different contexts. The three ships represent industry, science and activism in the show.

„Out of the Blue” is an attempt to capture a particular moment in the history of the planet. How deep can we drill into it for profit, and what do we, as human species, actually want to dig into? What are the risks and challenges we face? What other opportunities do we have?

An hour before the presentations, we invite you to a screening of three short films that show human expansion on Earth in different geopolitical contexts:

– “Echoes of billions of years,” by Naoko Tanaka (Japan, Germany), 10 minutes.
Naoko Tanaka’s film essay based on drawings from the artist’s trip to the contaminated Fukushima zone transforms real encounters into magical narratives.

– “Dark Matter”, directed by Viktor Brim (Uzbekistan, Germany), 20 minutes.
Viktor Brim’s camera captures apocalyptic images, documenting sites of past and ongoing natural resource extraction. “Dark Matter” begins with misty landscapes with industrial plants and ends in the abyss of the Mirna diamond mine in Yakutia, Siberia.

– “Kris Project I: The Neverending Story of Maria, the Tin Mine, Spices and Harimau,” dir. by Au Sow-Yee, (Malaysia/Taiwan), 15 minutes

In the 19th century, British colonizers recruited Chinese and Indian laborers to British Malaya to extract natural resources. Following the principles of the racist policy of “divide and rule,” they led to violent conflicts, the traces and consequences of which can still be seen today. “Kris’s project I” deconstructs Malaysia’s ‘cultural subjectivity’ in its internal and external colonial history. “Pseudo-documentary” by Au Sow-Yee separates sound from image, disrupts time and space, and uses archival footage to break down linear historical narratives.