Undertheshadowofchange a project by

ISABELLE PATEERNICOLAS CLEMENTMARC WENDELSKI

Undertheshadowofchange

introduction

Since the beginning of the industrial era, the exploitation of natural ressources as well as the occupation of the lands have reached a critical state that had never happened in history.

In the last decades the mass productivism and over-consumption lead to greater demand for natural resources and land surfaces to implement more and more production sites.

All over the world, the companies that extract, transform or produce goods for this global demand are engaged in a fierce race for power on the lands.

The consequences of this speculation and mono-polization are disastrous for the environnement, communities and local heritage.

The promises made by the avid companies to the inhabitants of the coveted lands often lead to severe fractures between the ones who hope for a better economic situation and the others, who want to preserve their roots.

Moreover, the depletion of natural resources, influenced by the extraction of raw materials, the deforestation and the pollutant techniques of production, becomes a major concern.

Simultaneously we can observe the rise of local or international protest movements fighting for other conceptions of development, for the protection of their history, of their ecosystems, of their lands...

Isabelle Pateer, Nicolas Clément and Marc Wendelski, three photographers based in Belgium, have been working on theses subjects through self initiated documentary projects in three different places and situations.

They decided in 2013 to associate and propose a touring exhibition which explores this very topical issue: the industrial expansion and its consequences.

From the Belgian village of Doel, threatened by the expansions of the harbor of Antwerp and related nature compensation plans, to the sacred land of Wirikuta in Mexico and the Romanian village of Rosia Montana coveted by a Canadian gold mining companies, the exhibition gives three points of view and three sensibilities, questionning our relation to the earth, to our needs, to our past, and offers some perspectives of resistance (as shown by the young people of the Forest of Hambach in Germany and their fight for its protection).

the exhibition is available in different compositions depending on the space and needs.

we can provide texts and captions.

for more informations aboUt the conditions, please contact marc wendelski : wendelski@chiroUx.be

iSABELLE PAtEEr

Isabelle Pateer (°1980, The Netherlands) lives and works in The Netherlands and Belgium. Her work has been exhibited worldwide, including Copenhagen Photo Festival, Photofusion Gallery London, Galerie Lichtblick Cologne, Photo Ireland Festival, Botanique gallery Brussels, Daegu Photo Biennale, Korea and Fotofestiwal Lodz, where Isabelle was a finalist for the Grand Prix. Her recent long term project “Unsettled” has been awarded, published and exhibited internationally since 2008 and received a project grant from the Dutch ‘Anna Cornelis foundation’ in 2010. Isabelle has also been published in The New York Times Magazine, Inge Morath Magazine, Rearview mirror, The Irish Times, dienacht ma-gazine, GUP magazine, and many more.

To see more of Isabelle’s work, please visit: www.isabellepateer.com

unSEttLEd 2007 – 2013

The project ‘Unsettled’ focuses in a metaphoric way on the worldwide phenomenon of industrial expansion and its consequences, shown in the study of the Belgian village Doel and the surrounding polder area. The place is threatened by vast expansions of the port of Antwerp and related nature compensation plans, which install an artificial contrast between nature and culture. In this series, this actual case is approached and questioned in an indirect way, exceeding a pure documentary approach. It shows portraits of young inhabitants alternated by landscapes which bare witness to the transformed state of the area. Leaving a sourish taste by contrasting the young with the local changes, they symbolise the international tendency of global political and economic shifts and the way they manifest themselves to the people and their surroundings.

www.unsettled.eu

nicoLAS cLEMEnt

Nicolas CLÉMENT, born in 1976, has been creating a photographic oeuvresince 2000. Exploring the documentary practices and questioning perception, his images go beyond their descriptive functions: offered for reappropriation, they weave a link between his experience and that of the spectator. Interested in merging different disciplines, he combines photograpy with video, sound and installations.

His work has been exhibited in important institutions in Belgium and abroad such as Museum of Photography in Charleroi (2000), the Biennale of Visual Arts Liège(2002), Rip Arles (2003), Botanique in Brussels(2005), Gallery Neï Licht (2006-2009), Casino Luxembourg (2007), Festival Foto España(2009), the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles in Paris(2011), Center of the Ta-pestry of Tournai(2012) and Gallery Les Drapiers (2013).He collaborates with the multidisciplinary collective Ost and joined the photographic project Wilderness. Since 2011 he has been collaborating with Kathy Contreras to create new forms of writing at the achtli compagny in which performances, images, installations and other creative experiences are combined.

Nicolas Clément lives and works currently in Brussels where he teaches photography.

http://nicolasclement.org

tHE WAr oF GodS WirikutA / roSiA MontAnA 

In his book “Das Passagen-Werk”, the German philosopher Walter Benjamin interprets modernity as «the time of hell.» Indeed, for Benjamin, modern times governed by an empty temporality, are defined in relation to the goods and the logic of capital. Instrumental reason has been used as a weapon to dominate people and as a tool to exploit nature. Today, the so-called instrumental reason is not only a tool, but a dictatorship. Capitalism as religion – perhaps the most fierce, implacable and irrational, which envisages no redemption – drives the destruction of humanity and the planet. However, in the prophetic vision of Benjamin, there are possibilities of struggle, moments of resistance, some glimmers of hope and rebellion. It is the «weak messianic power of the victims».

In the land of Wirikuta (the sacred place of the Wixárika people, more commonly known as Huichol, situated in the north of Mexico) the Canadian company First Majestic Silver Corp has been granted concessions to exploit the gold and silver mines by the “bad government”. But these industrial activities are a serious threat to Wirikuta, the heritage of the Huichol, their rituals and their cosmogonic theories. It is also the natural habitat of the Peyote – the sacred plant of the Huichol («El Jikuri») which is consumed during their rituals.

In Romania it is the village of Rosia Monta-na which is suffering from the adjacent mine, Europe’s largest gold mine in the open air. Here another Canadian company, the Gold Corpora-tion, has been appointed to realize this project, which would require the use of cyanide, the displacement of hundreds of families and the partial destruction of four mountains as well as ravaging this region so rich of Dacian and Roman historic traces.

From Mexico’s semi-desert to the snowy Asupeni mountains of Romania, two territories with two mining projects are shown by Nicolas Clément’s photographs.

Different settings in which the same scenario is enacted. Toronto, Canada, remains a tax heaven for the mining industry causing many companies to build their headquarters there. From this vantage point the mining industry keeps on threatening territories and populations all over the world.

But resistance is rising.

MArc WEndELSki

Marc Wendelski (°1978, Verviers, Belgium) lives and works in Liège. He turned to photography towards the end of his studies at the Fine Arts Academy in Verviers, his birth town. He then went to Saint-Luc Liege.Since then he has shared his time between his own creations, teaching and commissioned (for the International Biennial of Photography and visual arts in Liège - BIP) and canvassing work for other photographers.

His work has been exhibited in important insti-tutions in Belgium and abroad such as Musée de la Photographie - Charleroi, FOMU - Antwerpen, Museo de Bellas Artes - Santiago de Chili, Espace 251 Nord, Raum für Kunst - Aachen, Les Brasseurs / L’annexe - Art Contemporain...His first book, «Nage Libre» has been published by Yellow Now in 2008. In 2011, He won the Price Paule Pia with his series «DUST».The series «Beyond the forest» has been awarded in 2013 by the center for Photography Contretype in Bruxelles and was selected for Circulation(s) 2013, Festival of young European Photography. To see more of Marc’s work, please visit: www.wendelski.be

‘BEYond tHE ForESt (2013)’

Following the disaster of Fukushima and under the pressure of the public opinion, the German government decided in spring 2011 to maintain the program of phasing out of nuclear power at the horizon of the year 2022, by focusing on a fast development of renewable energy supplies but also on its own resources of fossil fuels, amongst them lignite abundantly present on the territory.Germany is the world’s first producer of lignite, which is used as fuel in thermal power plants lo-cated close to the extraction sites.

The RWE group, one of biggest German energy supplier, extracts about 100 millions of tons of lignite per year in three opencast mines in North Rhine-Westphalia, in order to supply fuel to run their six plants in the region.

The use of a fossil fuel such as lignite produces important emissions of carbon dioxide and fine particles in the atmosphere. Its extraction causes considerable changes in the environment and the landscape : Entire villages are expropriated, vasty surfaces of agricultural or forest land are destroyed, highways are diverted as the excava-tors are moving forward digging into the ground several hundred metres deep to achieve the layers of lignite.

In the region of Hambach in the 1970s, in direct proximity to one of the biggest opencast mines of Europe, a forest extended over more than 4000 hectares. This forest had remained intact for several thousands years. During the last decades, the major part of it has been swallowed up by the mining activity.

In May 2012, a militant group built up a camp in the forest of Hambach to protest against the expansionary policy of the RWE group and the destruction of the last hectares of the forest.

Facing the mine, right at the edge of the forest, shelters made out of wood, straw and clay were constructed. Platforms and sheds in the trees sheltered the activists during several months. In November, a massive forced eviction was organised by the authorities.

After four days of altercations between the militants and the police forces, the last activist was extracted from a tunnel in which he had barricaded, and the camp was destroyed. A few hours later, a new camp was set up a little further in a field adjacent to the forest of Hambach.

Since then, activists from all over Germany but also other European countries are succeeding each other in the camp. Every day they are threatened with expulsion.

contActS

MARC WENDELSKIe : wendelski@chiroux.bet : +32(0)4 349 14 19m : +32(0) 495 77 48 79www.wendelski.be

NICOLAS CLÉMENTe : nicolas.clement@gmail.comm : +32(0)497 60 64 78www.nicolasclement.org

ISABELLE PATEERe : studio@isabellepateer.comm: + 32(0)494 24 97 92 (BE)t: + 31 (0)6 152 87 149 (NL)www.isabellepateer.com