Earth Day Online Art Exhibition and more…
The Goethe-Institut Boston joins this year’s global Earth Day celebrations with a variety of online and in-person events. (Full listing here.) A tradition since 1970, thousands of organizations in over 193 countries around the world come together every year to honor our Earth and call for common climate action. In addition to online film screenings, author conversations and a student contest, we will celebrate Earth Day with song, art and coming together in and around our newly-renovated building on April 22nd.
Classroom materials for German teachers and the national Earth Day-design contest for your students can be found here!
Be assured, our in-person festivities are carefully planned taking into account current COVID-19 restrictions and environmental sustainability. All visitors are required to wear a mask and social distance while in attendance.
First event: A portrait of the Earth in the Anthropocene – at seven locations that humans have transformed on a grand scale: Entire mountains being moved in California, a tunnel being sliced through rock at the Brenner Pass, an open-cast mine in Hungary, a marble quarry in Italy, a copper mine in Spain, the salt mine used to store radioactive waste in Wolfenbüttel and a tar sands landscape in Canada.
Initially shown from above as abstract paintings, these terrains are subsequently explored on the ground: The film weaves together observational footage of machines in operation with conversations with the workers. Alongside statements on work processes, environmental damage and technological change, Erde makes this constructed world visible in unique fashion by subtly paring it down: the piles of grey matter, hills and mountains. The blackness and the cracks. The sandy landscapes, criss-crossed by an array of mechanical devices that scuttle about like caterpillars or worms. The dimensions are gigantic, the proportions out of control; the world has slipped from humanity’s grasp.
“There is always a bigger machine, a bigger engine and when all fails there is dynamite. We always win.”
Or do we?
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