Northern Drift
2020
Video installation, 55”00, 2K colour, 1.85:1 aspect ratio, 5.1 sound
English, Russian and Norwegian spoken with English subtitles
Courtesy of the artist
Northern Drift is set in the sparse, yet occupied, wilderness of the Norwegian-Russian borderland in the European High North, home to the indigenous Sami culture.
This frontier area became an industrial development site in the late 19th century. It is not only a region whose landscape still bears visible traces of the conflicts of the last century, but also one that has come to play a key role in an ongoing northward expansion fuelled by the expectation that climate change will allow enormous profits to be reaped from the as yet untapped natural resources of the north.
Resulting from long-term research conducted in the shadow of the protocols and restrictions around the political border, Northern Drift takes the form of an investigation whose object is never quite revealed.
Assembled from personal experiences, collected testimonies and local stories, the film presents a subjective portrait of the contentious Norwegian-Russian borderland. A cautionary tale of sorts, the film is at once travelogue, anthropological document and retro-futuristic sci-fi, blending these tropes into a re-imagined geography through a poetic exploration of a labyrinthine zone where past and future are confounded.
Artist’s Bio:
Alexis Destoop’s (1971, Belgium; lives and works in Sydney, Australia and Brussels, Belgium) work explores the workings of the image and narrative, the experience of time, and the processes of identification and memory. His practice originates from photography but has been influenced by his experience in the performing arts as well as his studies in art history and philosophy. Referencing classical representations of the human figure, his earlier works focus on duration and performativity. More recently, landscape has become his primary subject matter, which he treats with all its stratified meanings and histories.
Credits
Direction and Cinematography by Alexis Destoop
Written by Peter Eckersall & Alexis Destoop
Narrated by Erik Lambert
Sound design & Composition by Laszlo Umbreit
Editing by Laurence Vaes
Compositing & grading by Paul Millot
Titles by Devi Mallal
Production by Alexis Destoop, Luba Kuzovnikova and Erik Lambert
Sound Mix at Empire Digital
Mastering at Cobalt Films
Produced by
An Archer A Weaver
&
Stempel Films (Brussels, BE)
Pikene på Broen (Kirkenes, NO)
Coproduced by
Argos, Centre for Art & Media (Brussels, BE)
Beursschouwburg (Brussels, BE)
Kunstencentrum Buda (Kortrijk, BE)
UNSW, School of Arts & Media (Sydney, AU)
Nadine (Brussels, BE)
Stempel Prod (Brussels, BE)
With the support of
Flemish AudioVisual Fund (VAF, BE)
Flemish Community Commission (VGC, BE)
TaxShelter.be and ING (BE)