And when it's over, dust settles

And when it's over, dust settles, Video still, 2020

And when it’s over, dust settles
2020
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And when it’s over, dust settles depicts the tumultuous relationship humans have with their natural environment. The artist gathered video material of people pushing rocks off cliffs, sending them into a tumbling descent. Unsettled by human hand, the erratics have their naturally stored potential energy turned into destructive force. Sometimes dozens of metric tons in weight, the boulders rip a path of destruction through the trees and form a tunnel in between the shrub.
Even though the removal of the boulders sometimes seems to be part of an organized construction procedure and the used equipment is professional, the (mostly young male) actors of the scenes’ reaction to the large stones tumbling down the hills is often enthusiastic and childlike. The positions that the groups of men assume when gathering their force to push the rocks, recalls the visual language of renaissance paintings or epic imagery like “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima”.
People are depicted as actors in a natural domino-like process. The avalanches, sparked by the tumbling rocks serve as a crystal clear visualization of the snowball effect that is often referred to in environmental sciences. Even when the people leave the frame, the rocks keep on rolling. After the humans' cheerful calls fade away the landscape remains changed forever.

And when it's over, dust settles, Video still, 2020