Ghosts of the Arctic

A project by The Kotzebue Kollective

An experimental speculative short film/essay (17.11 mins) of collaged taken and found film footage, audio, sound and essay that traverses time, borders and ideologies and floats in an interregnum between the imagination and reality which is shaped and inspired by a residency in Svalbard in the dark less summer days and nights of the High Arctic.

Accompanying photographic images, objects and documents from the abandoned Soviet coal mining town of Pyramiden bring the ghosts, aura and place to haunt and support the film.

The ‘short film’ is explored from the position of both witness and researcher. Time and reality, truth and fiction are urgently collaged into and narrated by characters and voices that cannot always be relied on, engaging with literary and theatrical forms that include speculative fiction and autobiography, lived experience and the haunted past and futures. Caught in the cracks between forecaster, documenter, philosopher, confessionalist and historian, the author constantly enquires - did and could this happen and who owns, writes and controls the archives and memories?

Informed by essayistic documentary-making, Hauntology, collage, memory, colonialism and psychogeography. Using photography, film, text, sound, narrative voice and found footage, these assemblages, images and artefacts explore landscapes – real and imagined – in a time, seemingly in post-capitalist decline.

‘Ghosts of the Arctic‘ traces aspects of the life and the search for the missing works of fictional artist Edward Knorr by the fictional disappeared art critic Albert Bernstein. The journey from the Baltic states to northeast England and onto the Russian Arctic, carrying loss, love, war, and political and social turmoil into our lost imagined futures and the era of the commodification of memories.

A project that is shaped by the most important issue of our time. Referencing a land where the observer can witness glaciers melt and obvious climate change as they take a breath.

The Venue

Artist Statement

Richard Denny is a British /Australian citizen and is currently working on projects in Tallinn, Estonia. Educated at RMIT (Australia) RIT (USA) and Falmouth (UK)

Building on successful earlier practices within photography and painting that had parallel international existences over the previous 30 years, the projects completed within the last two years in the post covid sphere, have moved the artist's practice into new territory, research, and exploration involving film/essay, installation, and other collaged media, places, times and ideas.

Collectively, the projects are authored by the anonymous Kotzebue Kollective and the films are produced by Katka Films, each operating from their own blurred manifestos.

Contact

richarddennyprojects.com

All untitled photographic stills. 2022. Richard Denny/ The Kotzebue Kollective