Lisa Rave, Tabu - Ceremony at the Navatu Reef, 2017, video still. Courtesy of the artist.
Projects
Europium
2014
Lisa Rave, Europium, 2014, video still. Courtesy of the artist.
Lisa Rave, Europium, 2014, video still. Courtesy of the artist.
Lisa Rave, Europium, 2014, video still. Courtesy of the artist.
"Using various levels of imagery, the essay film Europium draws connections between Papua New Guinea's colonial past and the planned excavation of raw materials from the Bismarck Sea. The film weaves a narrative around the rare earth element Europium; named after the European continent, the material will be culled from the ocean floor to ensure brilliant color images on smartphone displays and other flat screens, and of course for its fluorescent property, which is used to guarantee the authenticity of euro bank notes. The film describes this seemingly mundane fact as a return and repetition of history, pointing in the process not only to the complexity of human culture, its economies and systems of exchange, but also exposing the invisible ghosts of the past as they appear in the modern objects of our lives." [3]
[3] Text written by Philipp Kleinmichel. Lisa Rave, “Lisa Rave ‘Work: Europium,’” Lisa Rave, accessed May 2, 2024, https://lisarave.eu/#edu.
Biography
Lisa Rave (b. 1979, lives and works in Berlin, Germany) is an artist, filmmaker, and photographer. In her work, she often explores issues surrounding postcolonialism, and history’s repeating patterns in the complex interplay of culture, economy, and ecology, as well as natural phenomena. Rave studied experimental film at the University of the Arts Berlin and photography at Bard College, New York. She was a fellow artist at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart in 2014. Some of her recent exhibitions and screenings include Lofoten International Art Festival (2017); Arsenal Kino Berlin (2017); Glasmoog Cologne (2017); Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary–Augarten (2017); Württembergischer Kunstverein (2016); 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial (2016); FLORA ars+natura, Bogota (2015), Meulensteen Gallery, New York (2014); Kunstverein Wiesbaden (2013); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2012); Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (2011); and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2011).
Website
Lisa Rave. Courtesy the artist.
Conferences
Session II: Cultural Traces, Environmental Memory, Screening & Conversation: Tambu, Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss, 2023. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
The screening and conversation begin with a 45-minute film combining video footage filmed by Linke and Rave with written fieldnotes by anthropologist Guigone Camus, that were gathered on a 10-day journey together in the Lau group, Fiji, during the TBA—21 residency The Current onboard the Dardanella in the summer of 2017. The expedition was organised by Ute Meta Bauer to study the customary concept of tambu (taboo) as applied to marine biodiversity protection in a time of climate change and globalisation; to try to understand the social, symbolic, and economic connections between Fijian people, their seascape, and marine resources, and the change of the environment intertwined with and affecting local culture. The film brings together what had been seen, felt, understood and misunderstood in this brief time. It was made for the islanders of the Lau group — as a trace of their participation, conversations, landscapes and heritage in 2017 — and as a reflexive object which situates itself between contemplation and reflexive auto-criticism.
Selected Residencies
2023 Research Fellow, Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss, Nanyang Technological University
2022 Artist-in-Residence, Goethe Institute, Singapore
2020 Artist-in-Residence, Art Hub Copenhagen
2017 Fellowship, 'The Current', Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary Academy, TBA21 Academy
