Ursula Biemann’s Video on the Ethics of Oil and Water

“It has become obvious that ecological devastations go hand in hand with the existential struggles of marginalized communities. Deep Weather, the video shown at the Maldives Pavilion in Venice, makes this inherent correlation evident by connecting the dark open pit extraction zone for tar sands in the midst of the vast boreal forests of Northern Canada, with the struggles of Bangladeshi communities protecting their Delta villages from rising Sea levels. Hands on work by thousands without any mechanic help is what climate change will mean for people in the Deltas of the global South and elsewhere. In this accelerated world, the two operations collapse in time.”— Ursula Biemann

Still from Deep Weather (2013), Fields of tar sands of Alberta, Northern Canada.