Cuttings (2024) is a video work that arose out of work and research undetaken at a 2021 residency at ︎︎︎The Watch artspace and residency in Berlin, situated in one of the last remaining East German border watch towers, an edifice 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 remaining fragments of this older wilderness. This park would later be absorbed into the ’no-mans-land’ or 'death strip' between East and West Berlin, before ultimately returning to recreational use after the 1990. The park is known today for, among other facets, the tableau of contestations currently playing out there: the habitation of public space by groups of young migrant men, the ongoing sale of drugs, and the drowning of a Senegalese man with some accusations of police involvement.
Through the quick juxtoposition of clips the video work scans through the layers of history that construct the space of the park, while also taking a structuralist approach recognising the research materiality of the various tools and sources at hand. This video work 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: 3:00 mins