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19.10.2023 —— 23:03 on Ö1: Premiere of the radio play "water whispers" by Franziska Thurner, Abby Lee Tee and Manja Ristić on Ö1 Zeit-ton.
Curated by : Susanna Niedermayr
Immersed in the forest landscape of the Austrian——Czech borderlands, the trio co-existed with the almost tangible veil gently resonating between past and present, ancient nature and modern society, personal and collective histories. Exploring the ways of reconnecting with the regenerative nature’s intelligence they observed biomorphic layers coating wetlands and forests —— many tributaries of the river Schwarze Aist, lakes such as Stierhüblteich or Pohořský rybník and hidden quarries along the European watershed and former Iron Curtain. Making the village of Harrachstal their base, their creative flow gets caught in the whirl of John Tylo’s life legacy and his space for uncompromising art —— Garage Drushba.
Considerately intruding into the landscape intertwined with creeks and unfathomable forest slopes, they recorded beaver dams and lodges, the hydrogeomorphology of the various forest creeks, giant anthills, lake sediments, forest ambiance and insect choruses; they followed the trails of crayfishes, and talked to farmers being impressed by the (wetland restoration) skills of beavers. The extended field recording techniques and visual archive they made, revealed a dense spectrum of aquatic biophony.
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The now invisible border along the former Iron Curtain is revealed only through different angles of colonial attitude towards nature exploitation. After all, nature is there to serve whichever bureaucracy is dominant at the time. But strangely enough, the landscape remembers, and is not particularly quiet about it —— it absorbs and transforms every human activity, from comparatively benign farming to ongoing pollution, overexploitation and wars.