How to Hide a Mountain
Audio-Visual Performance Lecture

Presented at 
2024
SwissArchitectureMuseum (S AM FM)
Soil Horizons

2023
DutchDesignWeek (premiered)

My thanks goes to
Miguel Teodoro
Video documentation (stills used above)
Leidy Karina Gómez Montoya
Additional photography (preview image).
Stills from Performance »How to Hide a Mountain«

Composed of two narrative layers, the audio-visual performance interweaves layers including field research, audio recordings and photography. 

Using a fictional parabel inspired by Calvino’s »Invisible Cities« as well as spoken word elements, the first narrative layer describes a newly terraformed island and its inhabitants as they find themselves trapped within the paradigms of growth and the necessitated »geospatial other« on the periphery. A secondary journalistic layer walks through several landfills (land bodies) across Europe. Each site highlights inherent contradictions of landfilling and deconstructs its engineering mechanisms both via technology and language. The gaze of communities and industries is pointed towards new technology saving the landbody in the future. Efforts are divested towards ensuring safety and aftercare, resulting in more designed infrastructure that supports thereof. A debate on the continued raison d’etre of the landbody appears to be missing, and with endless streams of hazardous wastes destined to form their strata, landbodies are likely here to stay. 

The performance transitions at the end into the video piece »The Geospatial Other«. 
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