You enter a dark blue room with dimmed black light and an ambient sound you’ve never heard, like a wailing drone. It feels like entering a cave to another world.
On one side you have the portraits of monsters masks under a strong black light and in the other room, is projected a documentary, followed by a short film. The documentary presents 7-year-old children discussing about environmental issues in class. Then, in the short film, we see the same children wearing monster masks made of recycled material running in slow motion toward us, edited with images of mountains dissolving. But there is a constant disturbing sound, made out of the voice of all the children, like a creature howling in deep pain.
This project was commission by the Whitechapel Gallery, Film and Video Umbrella and Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art to the British and Greek artist Mikhail Karikis. His performances and short films are focused on the sound and the human voice. He explores the emotional and physical impact sound can have on us, and he explores new way to create sound. But his work is deeply anchored with social and human reality. He exposed his films in multiple biennales and exhibition around Europe.
For this particular project, he worked with a class of 7-years-old children through workshop about sound. The children were reading the book ‘’The Iron Man’’ from Ted Hugues, which gave Karikis the idea of studying with them the sequel of this fiction: ‘’The Iron Woman’’.
This book tells the story of an iron woman appearing on earth to destroy the humans because of the way they are treating earth. She gives a ‘’disease’’ spreading by touch to a little girl that allows the little girl hear the sound of the earth, of the animals and of the plants. But they are all suffering from the pollution, and the sound is a perpetual cry from all the livings. The little girl decide to warns the adults about the suffering of the earth by spreading the disease. Fortunately the book has an happy ending.
The artist had the children debate about the book and their concerns about the future. The he asked them to create the sound from this book, using whatever they wanted (their voice, objects, etc), to finally mix the sound they created together. It wasn’t the first time Karikis was working with children (see his previous work ‘Ain’t Got No Fear’ and ‘Children of the Unquiet’).
In an interview, Mikhail explains the process he went through with the children and why he chose certain imagery in the short film. There are close-up of sand (to form the ‘’mountains’’) vibrating and changing aspect with the sound, as if they were disappearing and reforming. The artist wanted to show that the action of the children could move mountains with their voice. He has the feeling that new generation are stronger and capable of more than they think they do.
The name of the installation is important: ‘No Ordinary Protest’. It is a protest you’ve never seen before, that is out of what is commonly done. You walk into a dark room were you are greeted by real size pictures of the children wearing creatures mask in the darkness. They seem to be standing in front of you, looking right at you, as if they were directly confronting you. You’re facing an army of children wearing creatures mask.
The mask hides the faces of the children and therefore their individuality. It also hides their humanity and they seems to belong to another kind of being/creature. They are one force together that pushed aside their human nature to show their animal/creature side. With this, they show they sided with Earth, with the environment and all the being that are suffering.
There is also that sound played during the short things. Something again that we’ve never heard before. A mix of cries, drone sound, and other instrument played by the children. It gives an unsettling feeling. It makes you feel uneasy. I saw a lot of people leaving the room when the sound started to play as if this sound was unbearable to listen to for them. It is somehow, in context, shows that the humans don’t want to be confronted to the pain we cause to the Earth. They escaped from their responsibility, they could not confront the problem. But this is what this exhibition is about: to make us want to act about the environment problems we are all facing now. The artist exposed children to this issue and have them debating about it, but some ‘adults in the room’ just leave the screening? It feels like the next generation is more concern than older are to this problem. Are we waiting for the next generation to fix this?
The children are an anonymous force surrounding us and, like in the book, they are trying to touch us so we could also hear the cries of the Earth, so we could all fix this.
Reference:
http://www.mikhailkarikis.com/about-mikhail-karikis/http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/about/history/
http://www.mikhailkarikis.com/2018/08/30/no-ordinary-protest/http://www.mikhailkarikis.com/2018/08/18/text-by-prof-cathy-lane-no-ordinary-protest/
http://www.mikhailkarikis.com/2018/08/30/mikhail-karikis-interview-on-no-ordinary-protest-2018/