Catalogue > At random

The film focuses on Nauru, a tiny remote island in the Pacific with 10,000 inhabitants. The narration discusses different voids that have shaped the islands past and future. The largest void is a physical one, the island is a raised reef consisting of calcite and phosphate on a volcanic base, which since 1906 has been mined and exported to Australia, to fertilise the former colonisers’ farms. When phosphate extraction came to a stop in the 1980s, Nauru was bankrupt and 80 percent of the land area uninhabitable and infertile. In an attempt to generate income, in the 1990s Nauru became a prime money-laundering haven. After the disappearance of soil and money, today Nauru involves in the “disappearance of people” - housing one of Australia’s offshore refugee detention centres. In a reaction to the criticism on terrible human right situation in the detention centre, Nauru severely restricted access to the island. Four whistleblowers, who worked as doctors and nurses in the detention centre, describe the institutionalised human rights violations in the offshore detention. Today a new void threatens the island, rising sea-levels threaten the coastal edge, which is the only area left for its inhabitants to live.

Zanny Begg is a Sydney based artist whose work focuses on political activism and community. Her work is often collaborative inviting engagement with key themes such as resilience, financial disobedience and unthinking borders. Zanny has an experimental and research driven practice that works across film, performance, installation, activism and drawing. Zanny’s exhibitions include The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2017; Sharjah Biennale, 2011; Istanbul Biennale, 2009. Oliver Ressler produces installations, projects in public space, and films on issues such as economics, democracy, global warming, forms of resistance and social alternatives. Solo exhibitions: Berkeley Art Museum, USA; Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum, Egypt; Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk; Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz; MNAC - National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest; SALT Galata, Istanbul. Ressler is the first price winner of the Prix Thun for Art and Ethics Award in 2016.