Oliver Ressler
born 1970 in Austria, lives and works in Vienna. He produces installations, projects in public space, and films on economics, democracy, migration, global warming, forms of resistance and social alternatives. Solo exhibitions: Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz; CAAC, Seville; MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest; SALT Galata, Istanbul. Ressler participated in the biennials in Seville (2006), Moscow (2007), Taipei (2008), Lyon (2009), Venice (2013), Quebec (2014), Jeju (2017), Kyiv (2017) and Documenta 14, Kassel, 2017 (EMST exhibition).
Participant in
The Wake Up! Memorial –
Wake Up! – Climate Change
Gandhi PPNRCD
Everything’s coming together while everything’s falling apart: Limity jsme my, 2019, 10:00
This film leads us directly into the blockade of BÃlina coal mine in Northern Bohemia in the Czech Republic. In June 2018, climate activists entered the mine in an attempt to stop all activity there and to insist on the need to shut down climate-destructive mining operations. The blockade followed an action consensus that rejected property damage and sought to avoid direct confrontation with the police. Nonetheless, 280 of approximately 400 activists taking part were detained. The camera follows a group of activists awaiting deportation inside a police kettle, against the backdrop of a landscape defaced by lignite strip-mining. While the screen shows images filmed from inside a prisoner transport vehicle, we hear the voice of a semi-fictional character, reflecting on mass civil disobedience.