Text by CLOT Magazine
As part of the Terrestrial University lectures series by ZKM, photographer and filmmaker Armin Linke is joining Philipp Ziegler, head of the curatorial department at ZKM, for a talk this evening, 14 January 2021, at 7 pm CET. The conversation will explore Linke’a artistic practice and work within the frame of the exhibition Critical Zones.
For over twenty years, Linke has documented how humanity uses technologies and knowledge to transform the earth’s surface and adapt it to its needs. In a collective approach with other collaborators, his works’ narratives expand on the level of multiple discourses. Linke’s film Prospecting Ocean, created in 2018, resulted from a three-year investigation into the future of the oceans and a deep dive into the potential risks and impacts of the gold rush that is sea mining.
The film was comissioned by TBA21-academy and explored the contemporary challenges facing the oceans and grapples with the tension between ecological protection and political and economic exploitation. It juxtaposes rarely-seen images of the ocean floor with the machine used to harvest deep-sea minerals.
The conversation aims to explore some questions, such as: How will the »new global gold rush« of deep-sea mining affect the planet’s health in the future? How can we prevent it from resembling past paradigms of conflict over resource exploration, including the marginalization of indigenous peoples and their rights and disregard for environmental and social implications?
