Cuttings is a video work that arose out of research undertaken and footgage captured during as 2021 residency at ︎︎︎The Watch artspace in Berlin. The Watch is a unique residency situated in one of the last remaining GDR border watch towers, now located in a park in eastern Berlin, and managed by the nearby Flutgraben studio complex. The park ‘Schlesicher Busch’ was once a vast wooded heathland on the outskirts of the old city before being almost completely consumed by encroaching urbanisation, with the park one of the last remaiing fragments of this ancient greenery. The park would later be absorbed into the ’no-mans-land’ between East and West Berlin, before ultimately returning to recreational use after the 1990. Currently the park is known, among other things, for the tableau of contested behaviours playing out there: inhabitation of public space by groups of young migrant men, the sale of drugs, and the recent drowning of a Senegalese man wtih accusations of police involvement.
Through footage and ambient audio from the park as well as the the artist’s studio, the video artwork uncovers the layers of history that construct the space of the park, while also taking a structuralist approach that playfully explores the research materiality of the various tools and sources at hand. This is part of a three-fold work including ︎︎︎Cuttings II & III. The Cuttings series presents gestures and traces of landscaping, refecting on notions of the picturesque, and concerns around what may be omited, extracted and cast aside.
Cuttings, 2024
Digital video with stereo audio
Duration: 11:20 mins