Special Screening and Artist Talk
内部放映及艺术家对谈
On Sunday, February 23, DRC No. 12 will host a private screening featuring The Mountain Speaks to the Sea by artist Tekla Aslanishvili and Holding Rivers, Becoming Mountains by Solveig Qu Suess. Both artists will be present for a post-screening discussion, moderated by curator and researcher Yang Beichen.
A second screening will take place on Thursday, February 27. We warmly invite you to join us for a cozy gathering and enjoy the films together.
*This event is generously supported by Critical Media Lab, Basel.
2月23日周日下午，12号空间将举行内部放映活动，放映艺术家Tekla Aslanishvili 的影片《山海相语》（The Mountain Speaks to the Sea）以及Solveig Qu Suess的影片《留住河流，化作高山》（Holding Rivers，Becoming Mountains）。介时两位艺术家将到场分享，映后谈由策展人与研究者杨北辰主持。2月27日周四下午还将举行第二场放映，诚邀新老朋友前来观影小聚。
*此次活动得到了瑞士巴塞尔Critical Media Lab的支持。
Film Synopsis 影片简介
The Mountain Speaks to the Sea, 70 min, 2024.
The Mountain Speaks to the Sea reassembles fragmented (hi)stories of restructuring labor and life around energy politics. This two-channel experimental documentary follows the rivers of the South Caucasus across different seasons, tracing their paths from mountains and glaciers to the Black Sea, mapping the material and social infrastructures built around them. The film's narrative culminates in the EU-Georgia joint initiative to construct the world’s longest high-voltage power grid beneath the Black Sea, designed to transmit renewable energy from the Caucasus and Caspian regions to Europe and reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels. The cable acts as a potential catalyst for reshaping energy geographies, reactivating sites of energy extraction that were halted due to protests during and after Soviet rule.
Binding together personal, scientific, and political histories with myths and future projections, the documentary explores how hydro-energy infrastructures function as organizational tools across three interlinked areas: the production of knowledge, the making and unmaking of political and physical borders, and the practices of statecraft.
Holding Rivers, Becoming Mountain, 20 min, 2024.
A meditation on a river gone rogue, Holding Rivers, Becoming Mountains traces the downstream politics of hydroelectric development affecting the Mekong River. Set in Northern Thailand and Laos, the two-channel video installation looks at the processes, both past and present, that have allowed far-flung actors to alter the Mekong, itself, situated far away from the actual site of the dams. The dam exists as a specter; its presence is often felt at a distance.
During the economic lull of Chinese New Year upstream, women are able to pick riverweed from the calmed river. The river’s upstream and downstream dynamics are explored from the Mekong River Commission Summit held in Vientiane Laos, to several village representatives gathered with researchers along the Ing tributary, met to discuss living with and adapting to a changing river. A bird watcher traces a former riverbed grown into mountains, becoming both a border frontier and a new home.
《山海相语》（The Mountain Speaks to the Sea），72分钟，2024年。
这部影片重新拼接了围绕着能源政治而展开的劳工与生活的碎片化（历史）叙事。这部双频实验纪录片沿着南高加索地区的河流展开，跨越不同季节，追踪它们从群山与冰川流向黑海的路径，同时描绘出围绕着这些河流建构的物质与社会基础设施。影片的叙述最终指向一项欧盟与格鲁吉亚联合推进的计划——在黑海海底铺设全球最长的高压输电网，以传输来自高加索和里海地区的可再生能源，减少对俄罗斯化石燃料的依赖。这条电缆或将成为重塑能源地理格局的催化剂，重新激活这一片因错综复杂因素而一度停止的能源开采地。影片将个人、科学和政治史交织于神话与未来想象之中，探讨水力基础设施如何作为一种组织性工具，在知识的生产、政治与物理边界的建构与解构，以及国家治理的实践中发挥作用。
《留住河流，化作高山》（Holding Rivers，Becoming Mountains），20分钟，2024年。
《留住河流，化作高山》是一部关于叛逆河流的冥想，追溯了影响湄公河流域水电开发在下游地区所引发的诸多争端。该双频影像装置作品以泰国北部和老挝为背景，关注了整个开发过程从过去到现在的影响，呈现了这些远离现场的能量是如何改变湄公河的奔流现实。大坝本身作为一种幽灵存在，它的影响常常是遥远而间接的。
在春节期间的经济淡季，妇女们能够从平静的河流中采集河藻。从湄公河委员会在老挝万象举行的峰会，到因河沿线村委会和研究人员的讨论，影片探索了从上游到下游的河流动态，讨论如何与不断变化的河流共生相处。一位观鸟者沿着曾经的河床行走，如今这里已经化作山脉，成为边界的前沿和新的家园。
About the Artist 关于艺术家
Tekla Aslanishvili is an artist, filmmaker, and essayist based between Berlin and Tbilisi. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and a Graduate School fellow at the Berlin Centre for Advanced Studies in Arts and Sciences (BAS) at the UdK. She completed her BA studies at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts and holds an MA in Experimental Film and New Media from the Berlin University of the Arts. Her work has been screened and exhibited internationally at Berlinische Galerie; SculptureCenter, New York; Taipei Biennial 2023; Wiels, Brussels; Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Transmediale 2023, Berlin; LOOP Festival – Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona; NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore; Neue Berliner Kunstverein; 14th Baltic Triennial; Tbilisi Architecture Biennial; Short Film Festival Oberhausen; and Kunsthalle Münster. She was a Digital Earth Fellow (2019), a nominee for the Ars-Viva Art Prize (2021), and a recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Award (2020).
Tekla Aslanishvili是一位常驻柏林和第比利斯的艺术家、导演以及散文家。她目前是维也纳美术学院的博士候选人，同时也是柏林艺术与科学高级研究中心（BAS）研究生院的研究员。她在第比利斯州立美术学院完成了本科学习，并获得柏林艺术大学实验电影与新媒体硕士学位。她的作品曾在国际上多个重要机构放映和展出，包括柏林美术馆、纽约雕塑中心、2023年台北双年展、布鲁塞尔Wiels、阿姆斯特丹Eye Filmmuseum、法兰克福施尔恩艺术馆、2023年柏林跨媒体艺术节、巴塞罗那安东尼·塔皮埃斯基金会LOOP影像艺术节、新加坡南洋理工大学当代艺术中心、新柏林艺术协会、第14届波罗的海三年展、第比利斯建筑双年展、奥伯豪森短片电影节以及明斯特美术馆等。她曾是Digital Earth学者（2019年）、Ars-Viva Art Prize艺术奖提名人（2021年），并获得Han Nefkens基金会-安东尼·塔皮埃斯影像艺术创作奖（2020年）。
Solveig Qu Suess works within the fields of documentary film and artistic research. Since 2022, she has been working on two films concurrently: Holding Rivers, Becoming Mountains, set along the Mekong River, which explores the downstream politics of hydroelectric development on the Mekong; and Little Grass, a film on memory and belonging as it relates to the history of geopolitical division between China and the West, seen through the lens of her mother's career as an optical engineer. In 2018-2022 Qu Suess co-authored Geocinema— a project that explored histories of how environmental sensing has articulated Earth’s transformations, using documentary as method to investigate aesthetics within geopolitical systems. Solveig's works have been shown widely in exhibitions and festivals, her writing has been published by Duke University Press, E-Flux Architecture, Lausan, the Funambulist, and Columbia Books on Architecture and the City. She is currently artist-in-residence and assistant professor at NYU Shanghai, and is a PhD candidate in Urban Studies at the University of Basel.
曲若汐（Solveig Qu Suess）从事纪录片与艺术研究创作。自2022年起，她完成了两部影片的创作：《留住河流，化作高山》以湄公河为背景，探讨水电开发对湄公河下游地区的政治影响；《Little Grass》则通过她母亲作为光学工程师的职业生涯为线索，讨论记忆与归属感，揭示中西方之间的地缘政治分裂史。2018年至2022年，Qu Suess是“Geocinema”项目的共同发起人，该项目探索了环境感知如何记述地球的变迁，使用纪录片作为方法来研究地缘政治美学。Solveig的作品在多个展览和电影节中展出，她的写作曾由杜克大学出版社、E-Flux Architecture、Lausan、The Funambulist和哥伦比亚建筑与城市出版社出版。她目前是纽约大学上海分校的驻校艺术家与助理教授，并在巴塞尔大学攻读城市研究博士学位。
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