Malena Szlam

EARTHWORK

4K digital video from digitised 16 mm film for 7 screens, each file between 2’30’’ and 3’30’’, colour, without sound, loop, 2026

WE COMMIT TO REDUCING OUR ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION TOGETHER. THE VIDEO WORKS IN THE MIRE PROGRAMME ARE ONLY SHOWN DURING PEAK HOURS, FROM 7-9.30 AM, 12-2.30 PM & 5.30-8 PM. ENJOY YOUR JOURNEY!

Szlam’s EARTHWORK series consist of seven videos, each of varying duration, offering an infinite number of temporal combinations. This richness is also apparent in the multitude of landscapes and motifs, filmed using a 16 mm Bolex camera. The artist captures images in three geographically significant areas from an ecological perspective: the Daintree Rainforest in Australia, the temperate Andean Araucaria forest in southern Chile, and the Chilean Atacama Desert. The artist observes and captures them, but does not intervene in any way nor alter – unlike the gestures of Land Art – the spaces she goes through. The first location, the Daintree Forest, is unique in the world for its interconnection of marine and terrestrial ecosystems. This forest transports nutrients and sediments via watercourses to the Great Barrier Reef. Despite the global significance of this area – the forest is one of the oldest tropical rainforests and is protected by UNESCO – it remains threatened by deforestation and the major climate changes of recent decades. The Araucaria forest represents a vital water resource, a wild habitat for a rich variety of flora and fauna, and a cultural heritage for neighbouring communities. It is also threatened by logging. The desert, meanwhile, is undergoing intensive lithium extraction, damaging the animal and mineral ecosystems it harbours. Szlam thus seeks to capture the narrative, cultural and natural richness symbolised by these places through the use of double exposure – a technique involving the exposure of the film twice to often different motifs, thereby creating a collage-like effect – whilst also highlighting their ancient presence and vulnerability. The images are the direct result of the analogue process: the colours are vivid and illustrate the luminous intensity of the filmed space-time. EARTHWORK presents itself as a meditation that prompts passers-by to reflect on our relationship with water, earth and sky, as well as the forces that shape and threaten them.

Production: Fonds cantonal d'art contemporain, Geneva, for the MIRE programme

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Malena Szlam

Crosslucid

Malena Szlam (*1979) is a Chilean artist and filmmaker of Argentine descent, based in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal. Her artistic practice is closely linked to ecological and geopolitical issues, and approaches perception from a political perspective. The artist considers human and natural systems in their interdependence and explores their interactions. Szlam employs film, installation and photography for their potential to superimpose multiple layers within the final work. Analogue photography and film offer expressive qualities, such as the material properties of film—manifested in its grain—the vibrancy of colours that blend during the development process, the need for light to expose the image onto the medium, and the techniques of double exposure and editing. For the artist, all these characteristics represent a tangible metaphor for her perceptual experience, which she calls the ‘bodily perception’. This principle regards perception as a phenomenon that engages all the senses. The filmic material becomes a body in transformation, mirroring the natural and living elements that the artist encapsulates in her films. Her recent projects explore geology, volcanology and earth sciences. Szlam also collaborates with composers and scientists to create soundscapes.