This Land is Not Mine

This Land is Not Mine (Dieses Land ist nicht das Meine) is presented as a 20 channel synchronised video installation with soundscape.

This Land is Not Mine focusses on the region of Lusatia, where Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic meet. The region, which has existed since before contemporary national borders were established, is the home of the Sorbian minority group and is also known for open cast mining, which has driven the mass relocation of villages communities in order to access brown coal seams. This new media project explores identity in a region of co-existing cultures undergoing fundamental socio-economic and ecological changes as the mining industry is phased out.

Installed as a triptych across 3 walls, twenty 7 inch, wooden-framed screens show video footage from Lusatia. The installation explores how identity plays a role in shaping the sustainability of Lusatia in the future, with a particular focus on integrating Sorbian identity in a coherent narrative for the region’s population as it steps away from coal, connecting with intangible resources such as culture, experience and tradition. Drawing inspiration from industry, regional myth and fairytales, Sorbian identity, cultural practices and the landscape, the installation comprises an outsider's understanding of the region in the context of industrial and structural transformation.

The triptych is divided along the principles of exploring the balance of processes in the complex system that is the region of Lusatia. Taking a more-than-human perspective on the region, the audio and video material is understood within a framework of reactions drawn from chemistry and climate science. The content is organsied between three types of state: steady, dissipative and multi.

The soundscape for the installation draws from the different perspectives elaborated in the video triptych in an unsynchronised loop allowing for reinterpretation of the confluence of image and sound at any time.
More information:
https://www.katausten.com/portfolio/this-land-is-not-mine/
CC Licensed Crowdsourced Sound Database:
https://lausitzklang.katausten.com/en/soundmap/

  • Kat Austen
    Artist
  • Kat Austen
    Director
  • Kazik Pagoda
    Programming and technology
  • aBe Pazos
    Programming and technology
  • Will Greensmith
    Carpentry
  • Ili Os
    Field Recording Contributions
  • Christina Kliem
    Field Recording Contributions
  • Johannes Staemmler
    Field Recording Contributions
  • John Grznich
    Field Recording Contributions
  • Erik Lemke
    Field Recording Contributions
  • Martin Ballaschk
    Field Recording Contributions
  • Research Institute for Sustainability Helmholz Center Potsdam (Formerly IASS Potsdam)
    Financing
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    This Land is Not Mine (Dieses Land ist nicht das Meine)
  • Project Type:
    Other
  • Runtime:
    20 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    April 1, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    28,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Germany
  • Country of Filming:
    Germany
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Ars Electronica Festival
    Linz
    Austria
    September 7, 2022
    Austrian Premiere
  • Fossil Experience Exhibition
    Berlin
    Germany
    April 22, 2022
    Berlin Premiere
Director Biography - Kat Austen

Kat Austen is a person. In her artistic practice, she focusses on environmental issues. She melds disciplines and media, creating sculptural and new media installations, performances and participatory work. Austen’s practice is underpinned by extensive research and theory, and driven by a motivation to explore how to move towards a more socially and environmentally just future.

Working from her studios in Seoul and Berlin, Austen is Artist in Residence at the Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences, University College London and Senior Teaching Fellow at UCL Arts and Sciences. She has held numerous residencies and fellowships including STARTS Residency Repairing the Present at Ars Electronica, EMAP / EMARE Artist in Residence at WRO Art Center 2020 and Artist Fellow at Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Austen’s field research has included a voyage around the Canadian High Arctic as Artist in the Arctic 2017 for Friends of Scott Polar Research Institute (University of Cambridge) for her project The Matter of the Soul. In 2018 Austen was selected as inaugural Cultural Fellow in Art and Science at the Cultural Institute, University of Leeds for the same project.

Austen has exhibited at Changwon Sculpture Biennale, Republic of Korea; Bonhams Art Gallery, UK; The Polar Museum, UK; Contemporary Museum, Wrocław, Poland; Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, Belgium among others, and her work is held internationally in public and private collections. She has performed around the globe, including at Opera North, Leeds; Fusion Festival, Berlin, Ars Electronica Festival, Linz and Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco.

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