Before a landscape is transformed, it is made legible; it is mapped, surveyed, narrated, filmed, and bordered, producing images and records that shape how a territory is understood and used. Through these representations, territories are organized in ways that determine what can be built, extracted, preserved, displaced, or erased.

In dialogue with Reframing the American Landscape, which revisits mid-century US films that recasted landscapes in the image of development, this two-part program examines the relationship between representation and the exercise of power over territory. It asks whether the same instruments used to survey, classify, and administer territory can also be used to question dominant narratives, expose their consequences, and imagine other ways of seeing and understanding the ground.

To Hold the Distance

On Sunday, the film program turns to artists examining the ways territories are imagined, represented, and governed. Moving through simulated landscapes, aerial surveys, borders, and systems of measurement, the films trace how territory is made available to power before violence becomes visible.

The full program will be announced soon.

The event will be held in English and is free of charge. As space is limited, registration is required.