Out of the Blue

Residenties

  • 07.03 > 26.03.2022
  • 12.07 > 15.08.2021

We know more about the surfa­ce of the moon than we do about the bottom of the ocean.’ This sta­te­ment is often heard when tal­king about the deep sea. Worldwide, only 10 per­cent of the ocean floor has been map­ped and explo­red. At a moment in his­to­ry when the pla­net we live on see­ms to have been explo­red exten­si­ve­ly, some pla­ces remain unstu­died and unt­ou­ched.

After their acclai­med per­for­man­ces Mining Stories and Pleasant Island, Silke Huysmans and Hannes Dereere pre­sent the final part of their tri­lo­gy on mining. This time, they focus on a com­ple­te­ly new indu­stry: deep sea mining. With resour­ces on land beco­ming incre­a­sin­gly scar­ce and over­ex­ploi­ted, mining com­pa­nies turn towards the ocean. In the spring of 2021, three ships gather on a remo­te patch of the Pacific Ocean. One of them belongs to the Belgian dred­ging com­pa­ny Deme-Gsr. Four kilo­me­t­res below the sea surfa­ce, their mining robot is scra­ping the sea­bed in search of metals. On ano­ther ship, an inter­na­ti­o­nal team of mari­ne bio­lo­gists and geo­lo­gists keep a clo­se watch on the ope­ra­ti­on. A third ship com­ple­tes the fleet: on board of the infa­mous Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace acti­vists pro­test against this poten­ti­al futu­re indu­stry.

From their small apart­ment in Brussels, Silke and Hannes con­nect with the three ships through satel­li­te. Each of the ships repre­sents one pil­lar of the public deba­te: indu­stry, sci­en­ce and acti­vism. Through a series of inter­views and con­ver­sa­ti­ons, an inti­ma­te port­rait of this new indu­stry emer­ges. The pie­ce is an attempt to cap­tu­re a poten­ti­al­ly pivo­tal moment in the his­to­ry of the earth. How much dee­per can mining com­pa­nies dig, and what are we as human­kind actu­al­ly dig­ging towards? What are the chal­len­ges and risks? What oppor­tu­ni­ties poten­ti­al­ly lay ahead?


By & with: Silke Huysmans & Hannes Dereere
Dramaturgy: Dries Douibi
Outside eye: Pol Heyvaert
Sound mixing: Lieven Dousselaere
Production: CAMPO
Coproduction: Beursschouwburg (Brussels), Bunker-Mladi Levi (Ljubljana), De Brakke Grond (Amsterdam), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), Noorderzon Festival (Groningen), PACT Zollverein (Essen), Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Zürcher Theater Spektakel
Residencies: 30CC, Bara142 (Toestand), De Grote Post, GC De Markten, GC Felix Sohie, KWP Kunstenwerkplaats, Pilar

Technique: Korneel Coessens, Piet Depoortere, Koen Goossens, Babette Poncelet
Subtitles and Dutch trans­la­ti­on: Marika Ingels
French trans­la­ti­on: Isabelle Grynberg
Thanks to: all con­ver­sa­ti­ons part­ners & the peo­p­le who hel­ped with the trans­crip­ti­ons
Special thanks to: John Childs, Henko De Stigter, Patricia Esquete, Iason-Zois Gazis, Jolien Goossens, Matthias Haeckel, An Lambrechts, Ted Nordhaus, Maureen Penjueli, Surabhi Ranganathan, Duygu Sevilgen, Joey Tau, Saskia Van Aalst, Kris Van Nijen, Vincent Van Quickenborne, Annemiek Vink