PASSWORD: theviewsofoggy
A longer version of this lecture, which was performed at Ashkal Alwan, is available. Just send me an email
The View from Above Takes My Breath Away – Fully
Lecture Performance
27 minutes
2023
In The View from Above Takes My Breath Away – Fully, Nadim Choufi explores the contradictory scales and techniques of visualisation that have divided the world in an attempt to unify it for a global environmental view. Observing how sustainability projects in the Middle East were advanced through the adoption of the view from above, this lecture performance examines how political determinations and ambitions of this mode of visualisation identified certain regions as lands for resources to develop them into globally productive lands. Tracing the thin lines between possession and preservation, fertility and extraction, colonial thinking and environmental advancement, Choufi brings together visual cultures of maps, roller coasters, UNESCO programmes, and Walt Disney animations to expose the underlying desire for domination in a global environmentalism that claims to save the Earth.