Amar Kanwar. The Sovereign Forest

23.11.2013 - 23.03.2014

Thyssen-Bornemisza Augarten Contemporary, Wien / Österreich

Amar Kanwar’s works relate to political, social, economic, and ecological subjects in relation to the Indian subcontinent synthesizing documentary, travelogue, and essayistic formats into poetic films and multi-channel installations. The Sovereign Forest is Amar Kanwar’s on-going research project in Orissa, exploring the social and environmental impact of mining on the local community in Orissa. The central film, titled ‘The Scene of Crime’ offers an experience of landscape just prior to erasure as territories marked for acquisition by industries.... “Almost every image in this film lies within specific territories that are proposed industrial sites and are in the process of being acquired by government and corporations in Orissa. Every location, every blade of grass, every water source, every tree that is seen in the film is now meant to not exist anymore. ‘The Scene of Crime’ is an experience of ‘looking’ at the terrain of this conflict and the personal lives that exist within this natural landscape,” explains Amar Kanwar.

"I have been filming the resistance of local communities in Orissa to the industrial interventions taking place since 1999. It is hard to understand the meaning and scale of destruction there. Over a period of time, I began to feel that we were not looking anymore, the process of seeing, interpreting and understanding had become too fast, too seamless and too automatic. Strangely this seemed to slow and numb the mind. I felt that I had to learn to begin to look again. In 2010, I returned again to Orissa, but this time to film in particular the terrain of this devastating conflict. Almost every image in this film lies within specific territories that are proposed industrial sites and are in the process of being acquired by government and corporations. Almost everything that you see in the film is destined to not exist anymore. In this ‘war against the people and their land’ The Scene of Crime is an experience of the battle-ground in Orissa." (Amar Kanwar)

[Quelle: www.tba21.org]