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 focuses 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 fairy tales, 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 organised 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.