Talk
Melancholy Mangroves and the Plastic at Sea
A Conversation with Petra Beck and Susanne Kriemann
photo: Amélie Losier
Photography and mystery – this was the theme developed by students of the 48th Primary School in Pankow for their contribution to the exhibition Takeover. Susanne Kriemann’s series Mngrv (2018–2020) is the artistic work they chose. Today, the artist Susanne Kriemann and the ethnographer Petra Beck will talk to young and old visitors about the changing relationship to the sea along the lines of children’s books, all of which have a plastic duck lost in the sea as their main character.
The rubbish from the sea says to the mangrove: “Excuse me, shall we become friends?” Actually, it is funny that nature and rubbish are shown together in the photos of artist Susanne Kriemann. The mangroves shown in the photos are beautiful and mysterious. They live in ebb and flow, in salty water. They have many roots that stick out of the water. Nets, ropes, slippers, toothbrushes, plastic bags get caught in their roots. Why does our rubbish end up there when the mangroves grow on the other side of the earth?
Susanne Kriemann will talk with scientist Petra Beck about the entanglements between plastic, rubbish, the ocean, mangroves and people. Petra Beck will talk in depth about oceans, rubbish and plastic in three “content islands”. The sea transforms itself in our present from a magician of disappearance to a creature that spits out the things we thought we had lost and with which we are directly connected. Visitors and especially children are most cordially invited to participate in the conversation.
The talk follows the kids-curators’ wish that more people take the problem of environmental pollution seriously and learn to understand the world better.