The Summer of ‘72 (Fire)

Wanderwelle, The Summer of ’72 (Fire) (2023), still, colour, sound, courtesy the artists

In a split-screen format, the video installation shows archival footage of classrooms from the 1970s juxtaposed with forest fire imagery while ominous drones and sound design imbue the work with a brooding existential angst. Slowly but surely, the fire intensifies and the school is bound to be engulfed by flames. The work acts as a companion piece to the artists’ film The Four Nightmares and narrates the same message, that of impending doom in the form of natural disasters.

In 1972, the Club of Rome published the highly influential report The Limits to Growth. The study suggested that economic growth could not continue indefinitely due to resource depletion, which eventually could result in catastrophic environmental issues. A modern prophecy that came true half a century later. In this way, the video installation portrays the missed opportunity of how education could have substantially changed the current state of the climate crisis if the youth had been properly schooled at the time.

Read the in-depth interview for Eye magazine here (Dutch/English)

Date
2023

Medium
Analogue film transferred to digital video (colour, sound)

Duration
04:35 min.