Terrestrial University: Ciné-Cipó – Cine-Liana at Amazon Tall Tower Observatory
Barbara Marcel in conversation
Thu, October 08, 2020 7:00 pm CEST
- Location
- Online
The impenetrable expanse of the Amazon rainforest and the proximity of locally accessible airwaves of a community radio station, scientific knowledge and traditional knowledge, global and regional processes – Barbara Marcel's artistic work is an attempt to sensitize people to the complex interaction of life processes in the Amazon region.
The Amazon rainforest is of global significance: it produces a large part of the planet´s oxygen, filters and reprocesses the world´s harmful carbon dioxide, impacts the water cycle affecting ocean cycles and stabilize the climate. Located in the middle of the Amazon rainforest the Amazon Tall Tower (ATTO) aims to study the interactions between the forest, soils and atmosphere of the region in order to understand the role of the Amazon basin for the Earth system. The tower is part of an international cooperation between Brazil and Germany, built and financed by INPA (Amazon Research Institute) and Max-Planck Institute.
In the artistic project »Ciné-Cipó – Cine-Liana« (2020) the Brazilian artist Barbara Marcel proposes a temporary transformation of the tower into a community radio workspace for a collaborative piece between natural scientists and two local activists and popular communicators of the Tapajós-Arapiuns river Extractive Reserve (Reserva Extrativista/ Resex Tapajós-Arapiuns). The scientific results and traditional knowledges are set in relation, forming an alliance for the defense of the Amazonian biodiversity. Atmospheric and earthly data are translated into popular communication via a radio show with spots, interviews and songs. During the process, scientific evidence and ancestral knowledges sometimes intersect and occasionally disconnect, while the scientific community listens and also learns more about the struggles in defence of the territories and local livelihoods of the Amazonian populations, demystifying universalizing assumptions.
The conversation between the artist and the curator, Bettina Korintenberg, will focus on the development process of the artistic inquiry evolving around encounters with the scientists and the local activists which sensitize for the complexity and heterogeneity of an interplay of life processes in the Amazon beyond set concepts of nature, environment and climate crisis.
Terrestrial University
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More on the Terrestrial University
The »Terrestrial University« is an experimental lecture series in the context of the exhibition »Critical Zones – Observatories for Earthly Politics«, and we cordially invite you to attend the class. In a kind of lecture series of different formats such as lectures, discussions, artist talks, performance lectures or workshops, we turn to the critical situation of the Earth. Together with invited artists, scientists, curators and citizens as well as citizens' initiatives, we explore the »critical zone« - the thin surface of the Earth, in which all transactions of life are mutually dependent. The focus is on the crucial question of which shifts in thinking are necessary to maintain the »critical zone« in its fragile balance.
The Terrestrial University will be broadcasted via live stream, and accompanied by the chat of the Critical Zones Telegram group. You can find the past events of the »Terrestrial University« hereunder.
The artist and director Barbara Marcel, who was born in Rio de Janeiro and earned her doctorate at the Bauhaus University Weimar, has for many years been engaged in interdisciplinary projects that investigate contemporary ecological and social problems and issues in an artistic and scientific way.
The event will be held in English.
Viewers have the opportunity to accompany the conversation with questions, thoughts and suggestions in the chat of the Critical Zones Telegram Group (zkm_criticalzones).
To the virtual exhibition
Here you can find the video work »Ciné-Cipó« by the artist Barbara Marcel on the digital platform of the exhibition »Critical Zones«.
Event Website
Collophon
Produced in collaboration with the ZKM | Karlsruhe
Barbara Marcel, together with Natalina do Carmo Oliveira, Milena Raquel Tupinambá
Presented: Natalina do Carmo Oliveira, Milena Raquel Tupinambá; director and production: Barbara Marcel; camera: Felipe Frozza, Barbara Marcel; sound: Anne Santos; set production: Kandyê Medina, Thais Helena Medeiros, Bruna Bichara; editing: Célia Freitas; assistant editor: Beatriz Krieger, Felipe Frozza; sound mixing: Sarah Lelièvre; colorist: Guilherme Begué; finishing editor: Beatriz Krieger; music: Suraras do Tapajós
Sponsored by: Instituto Serrapilheira, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry Jena
Supported by: INPA – National Institute of Amazonian Research, Goethe-Institut São Paulo, Casa Bicho
The ATTO project is financed by: German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Max Planck Society, Finep, Fapeam and Fundação Eliseu Alves