Plänterwald
Exhibition view, National Gallery of Canada, 2012
Exhibition view, National Gallery of Canada, 2012
Single-channel video installation with surround sound: stilted screen construction, bleacher, and speakers | 2010 | 17:50
Plänterwald was filmed in an amusement park built in 1969 in the German Democratic Republic and sold after reunification to a private developer, who abandoned it in 2001. By 2010, after being closed to the public for almost a decade, the rides and fairground structures that had once provided distractions from everyday realities were showing signs of entropy. Many have since burned down.
In the video, the park’s roller coaster and Ferris wheel stand motionless on the outskirts of Berlin. Paradoxically, this overgrown derelict site is patrolled by security guards whose task is to ensure its separation from the contemporary public sphere. Their very presence, however, tethers the park to the deterioration of social and economic conditions yielded by the then-recent 2008 financial crisis.
The video stages a journey in, over, and through this enclosed park, reveling in its exceptional survival. By positioning the security guards as the guardians of a “dead” space—a site of obsolescence and decay—the work plays on the absurdity of both the sanctioned use of force and the notion of property. Plänterwald exposes a world held together by a fragile internal logic. Quietly, yet relentlessly—like the zombie roller coaster—it carries the muted echoes of its social and political afterlives and their explosive potential.
Credits
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Appearing:
Jürgen Salzmann, Steven Herbst, Herr Knitzer (security guards) -
Field Producer:
Sarah Poehlmann -
Cinematographer:
André Götzmann -
Second camera:
Daniel Sippel -
Grip:
Mirko Fricke, Jan Hagen -
Production assistants:
Hadley Howes and Maxwell Stephens -
Sound recording and design:
Johannes Krämer -
Editing:
Mathieu Bouchard-Malo -
Color grading:
Sylvain Cosssette -
Sound Mix:
Martin Hurtubise -
Set photographer:
Martin Thacker -
Postproduction support:
PRIM -
Funding:
Conseil des arts et des letters du Québec
Video still
Video still
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2016
Luminocity
Kamloops Art Gallery
Kamloops, Canada
Exhibition
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2015
How Far is Here
MAGO
Eidsvoll, Norway
Exhibition
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2013
Plänterwald
Or Gallery
Vancouver
Exhibition
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2012-14
Ecotopia
Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery
Kitchener, Canada. Traveled to: Nickel Galleries, Calgary Canada; Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge, Canada; Kenderdine Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Canada.
Exhibition
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2012
Builders: Canadian Biennial 2012
National Gallery of Canada
Ottawa
Exhibition
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2011
8+8 Contemporary International Video Art
53 Art Museum
Guangzhou, China
Exhibition
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2010
Catastrophe? Quelle Catastrophe!
Manif d'art 5: Quebec City Biennial
Canada
Exhibition
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2018
Frameless 17
Einstein Kultur
Munich
Screening
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2017
Disasters of Peace
Experiments in Cinema Film Festival
Albuquerque, U.S.A.
Screening
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2017
Northwest Film Forum
Seattle
Screening
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2017
The Horse Hospital
London
Screening
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2011
Recontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid
Centre Pompidou, Paris; Auditorium of the Minister de Culture, Madrid; Haus de Culture Der Welt, Berlin
Screening
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2010
European Media Art Festival
Osnabrück, Germany
Screening
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2010
Live Weekend
ICA
London
Exhibition