Somnivm

In Somnivm (2018) Kina uses cinematic tools to meditate on the conflicts of nature and culture. Stimulated by the relationship between anarchism and the marble industry and the desire to work with 35 mm film, Kina researched the quarries of Carrara, in Italy during the winter of 2017/18.

The exploitation of natural resources since Roman times continues to transform the landscape on an immense scale, reflecting what this particularly valuable white mineral has grown to signify in Western culture. The chopped mountains of Carrara, sculpted in time, lose the trace of human activity through an act of erasure in seemingly documentary footage. Filmed observation of the quarries is processed during post-production, in order to produce new images without the presence of action relating to the contemporary industry: elements such as vehicles, machines, cables, containers etc. are erased from the scenes. The absence created by these modifications, opens up the footage towards poetic or post-human readings, and in so doing, perhaps makes reference to an anarchist uprising by the quarry workers that took place at the end of the 19th century.