Ask the stones

Deep in the Earth, deep in time, chemical and mechanical processes have taken place under enormous temperatures and pressures over the geological ages. Ever since humans started digging, drilling, piercing, blasting, mining and exploiting these layers, the ground under our feet has not been at peace. Our civilisation is founded on the hidden layers of the Earth. It is based on the wrong belief that resources are inexhaustible. This film programme takes viewers on a tour through the bowels of the Earth.

In the film Unearth – In Between States of Matter, Anika Schwarzlose scrutinises the complex relationship between minerals and humans from the perspective of monstrous mining machines that, as an extension of the human body, devour the inner, intimate spaces of the Earth.

Katarina Swoboda, in her film Stones, explores a special kind of landscape from the drawers of a mineralogical museum. She examines the stones, minerals and rare earths that keep our smartphones alive and connect us with the inner strata of the planet.

In Europium, Lisa Rave takes a look at the element that makes our digital screens shine, while linking the German colonial presence in Papua New Guinea with the planned exploitation of the bed of the Bismarck Sea as a neocolonial continuation.

In Claudia Larcher's film Ore, her aerial perspective takes us along through desolate, scarred landscapes brought about by worldwide, aggressive, ceaseless extractivism right into an underground labyrinth dug out by miners.

The film Weißwasser Rundfahrt 01 by Jonas Eisenschmidt and Constanze Wolpers renders audible and visible the economic, social and emotional dislocations that life in mining landscapes causes to the residents.

What would happen if we were to listen to the stones, if we learnt from their stores of wisdom, shared their pain and respected their temporality?