carbon-echoes

This Land is Not Mine

Kat Austen (GB/DE)

This Land is Not Mine focuses on the region of Lusatia, where Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic meet and the Sorbian minority group has its home. This Land is Not Mine explores the changing identity of the ecosystem, land and peoples in the region as open cast brown coal mining is phased out. Including contributions of sounds from residents of Lusatia, the work is realized as a 7-track experimental music album and as a 20-channel video installation with soundscape, providing vignettes of this beautiful, historical, epic and changing region.

Stranger to the Trees

Kat Austen (UK/DE)

Stranger to the Trees is a new media project exploring the complementary coexistence of microplastics and trees as carbon sinks. How do trees and microplastics coexist in forests, capturing carbon in the time of the climate crisis? Combining video, interactive sound and sculpture, Stranger to the Trees queries the response of forest ecosystems to the ubiquitous and irrevocable dispersal of microplastics around the Earth.

Palaeoplasticene

Kat Austen (GB/DE)

Palaeoplasticene addresses the breakdown of plastic in the environment by engaging with a speculative past where plastic-based fungi evolved naturally, introducing plastic to the ecosystem in pre-human history. The sculpture invites visitors to engage with the longevity of plastic and the implications for our current and future ecosystems by reconfiguring our understanding of its presence over time.