Extraction: The Raft of the Medusa

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∞ “Extraction: the Raft of the Medusa” – Salomé Lamas (2019-2020)

Alienocene is proud to feature a film by Salomé Lamas, a prolific filmmaker who gives images and their blind spot the political content that allows them to touch the very heart of our present, where the ghosts of the past speak with the fears and hopes of the future. See Salomé Lamas’ website for more information.

Extraction: The Raft of the Medusa is a multidisciplinary project realized between 2019 and 2020. It comprises four homonymous works, two films, an installation and a publication.

Extraction: The Raft of the Medusa is a meditation on humanity’s massive redesign of the planet and a dystopic pamphlet on the Anthropocene.

It portrays a brief moment of euphoria as the drifting occupants on the raft, hoping and praying to be rescued, appear to glimpse a possibility of salvation. We can almost hear the hoarse cries through which they attempt to draw attention to their desperate plight, mustering a final ounce of strength before the void. This is their last chance of survival.

Extraction: The Raft of the Medusa refers to the colonial paradigm, worldview, and technologies that mark out regions of high biodiversity in order to reduce life to its conversion into a resource through capitalism, with an enormous environmental and social impact.

It is an allegory for states of emergency in environmental policy, climate and migration, with an ethical-political purpose.

Extraction: The Raft of the Medusa (2019-2020) is a project with the artistic direction of Salomé Lamas produced by ART for The World in coproduction with Lamaland and Primeira Idade. The project was produced with materials collected during the production of Interdependence (2019) an omnibus composed by eleven short films to raise awareness on Environment and Climate Change, conceived, developed and produced by Adelina von Fürstenberg with ART for The World, under the auspice of United Nations, World Meteorological Organization and the City of Milan, funded by SDC – Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, with the main partnership of Gail (India) Limited, ITC – Ethical Fashion Initiative.

The project was produced with the support of ICA – Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual, Fundacíon Botín, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, the development support of Yaddo, Atelier – Museu Júlio Pomar, Fundação Oriente, Brown Foundation Fellows Program at the Dora Maar House, the additional support of Grupo Nova Imagem, Bikini, Câmara Municipal de Lisboa – Lisbon Film Commission, Screen Miguel Nabinho, Forum Dança, Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, cE3c – Center for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Alexandra Moura, CCB – Centro Cultural de Belém, Silva Dias – Sociedade de Comércio de Lenhas e Carvão, EDM – Empresa de Desenvolvimento Mineiro, RNTRANS – Grupo Urbanos, António e Luciano Neto Décor – Artes Décor e Cenografia, INTERSECCIÓN – Contemporary Audiovisual Art Festival, Estraperlo Editora, Fundación Luís Seoane and Deputación da Coruña

License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs

Web: salomelamas.info