DABF23 Talk: berte & harmey, BIAŁO_REC

As part of Dublin Art Book Fair, artist duo berte & harmey will present a live audio-visual lecture-performance using a set of 48 smartphone images which chronicle two research trips to the border region of Poland and Belarus. The images , included in the publications BIAŁO_REC_1 and BIAŁO_REC_2 , document the residue of the charged environment of Bialowieza forest in Poland—a site of fragile, natural habitats, which also acts as a hostile, militarised environment for people on the move. By projecting, scaling and filtering a selection from these images, the artists try to navigate, interrogate, and reflect—from a distance—on this border area, highly defined by international migration and other geopolitical issues.

Can images help us to engage with the (experiential world of) people on the move—whom we do not see? Can the format of the lecture-performance be a medium to shine light on them. Can it bear witness and try to give voice to the people at the centre of a significant ongoing humanitarian crisis at one of the external borders of Europe (EU)? Can it be a useful tool to start a dialogue and enable a more enlarged form of engagement?

The publications BIAŁO_REC_1 and BIAŁO_REC_2 were made in collaboration with artist/publisher Stefan Klein (Verlak, Berlin) in an edition of 100 copies. Proceeds from the books and an accompanying artwork (multiple) will be donated to support the work of humanitarian NGOs working in the area around Białowieża.

berte & harmey is an occasional artist duo formed by Cliona Harmey and Filip Berte to share research and to explore ideas around spatial politics, critical geography, historical legacies, and socio-technical systems of exclusion and inclusion. berte & harmey have shown their work at DATA|ART with Sample Studios (Cork), Tulca 2022 (Galway, Ireland), at Hugh Lane Gallery (Open House Dublin 2022), NCAD Gallery (Dublin) and BLANCO (Ghent) and PXL-MAD (Hasselt).

Filip Berte is an architect and visual artist who explores space from multiple perspectives looking at issues such as migration, visibility, liminality, and the concept of borders. A critical engagement is integral to his interdisciplinary and process-oriented art practice. He considers his role as an artist as the one of a mediator, tackling questions of hospitality, polarisation, observation, surveillance, and control. With his work in general, Berte is trying to offer a reflective and poetic form of resistance.

Cliona Harmey works primarily with technology subtly exploring the politics inherent in both contemporary and historical socio-technical systems using material exploration and hands-on artistic practice to try to understand and reveal their materiality and logic. She is interested in different ways of making immaterial and mutable data tangible and the inscription processes of its capture and production.

This event takes place as part of Dublin Art Book Fair 2023: Polyphonic, sponsored by Henry J Lyons and supported by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.

Image description: A forest road appears through a small tilted circular lens and is surrounded by a black background. At the end of the road is a bright metallic square which represents part of a border fence. The road is lined with trees on both sides and the trees are covered with a dusting of snow.