Out of the Blue

Following their acclaimed performances Mining Stories and Pleasant Island (2022 as a guest performance at the FREIBURG FESTIVAL), Silke Huysmans and Hannes Dereere present the final part of their trilogy about mining. This time they focus on a completely new industry: deep-sea mining. As resources on land become increasingly scarce, mining companies are turning to the sea. In the spring of 2021, three ships gather on a remote patch of the Pacific. One of them belongs to the Belgian dredging company DEME-GSR. Four kilometers below the sea surface, its mining robot scrapes the seabed in search of metals. On another ship, an international team of marine biologists and geologists monitors the process. A third ship completes the fleet: the Rainbow Warrior, on which activists are protesting against this potential future industry. From their small apartment in Brussels, Silke and Hannes are connected to the three ships via satellite. Each of the ships represents a pillar of the public debate: Industry, science and activism. The result is an intimate and precise piece somewhere between documentary, multimedia installation and video essay, which restrains itself from expressing loud opinions. It is an attempt to capture a potentially decisive moment in the history of the earth. How deep can mining companies dig and where are we as humanity actually digging to