This Land is Not Mine is a 20-channel video installation with interactive sound explores the changing identity of the region of Lusatia, situated at the border of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. Lusatia is the home of the Sorbian minority group. As as brown coal mining in the region is phased out, This Land is Not Mine combines audio and video field recordings with sounds gathered from the region‘s community members that characterise their own identity, uploaded via the Lausitzklang platform, to explore how identity plays a role in shaping the sustainability of Lusatia in the future.
The installation is accompanied by a 7-track experimental music album, available on Bandcamp:https://vimeo.com/776977190 This Land is Not Mine | Album (Release date 27th January 2022)
Read more on the IASS Blog: What do you know about Lusatia? (available in English and German)
Credits
Funding: Research Institute for Sustainability Helmholz Centre Potsdam (Formerly Institute of Advanced Sustainability Studies Potsdam) and Galerie Prater, Stiftung Kunstfonds, LOTTO-Stiftung Berlin, and the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, kindly supported by Förderband Kulturinitiative Berlin and Schankhalle Pfefferberg
Technological consultants: Kazik Pagoda and aBe Pazos
Carpentry: Will Greensmith
Contributions of sound recordings: Ili Os, Christina Kliem, Johannes Staemmler, John Grznich, Erik Lemke and Martin Ballaschk
PRESS
This Land is Not Mine interview and sample, Kompressor, Deutschlandfunk, 7th September 2022
Full recording of This Land is Not Mine performance at Serbpop2.0 on the RBB Sorbian Programme, 18th September 2021
Article on This Land is Not Mine, “Zběra zuki strony a trjeba pódpěru” on Nowy Casnik, 14th January 2021
This Land is Not Mine on Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, 13th December 2020
Article on This Land is Not Mine, “Participatiwny wuměłstwowy projekt THIS LAND IS NOT MINE” on Nowy Casnik, in pdf format on page 7 (Sorbian), 5th November 2020
Article on This Land is Not Mine, “Kak klinči domizna?” on Serbske Nowiny online and in print, 26th October 2020