SEASON ONE — WAKING The GIANTS

SEASON ONE, 2022

ANIMATION
MUSIC
PERFORMANCE

SUPPORTED BY:
B’sarya for Arts, Prohelvetia, Embassy of Switzerland in Egypt, Kultur Kanton Bern, Kultur Stadt Bern, Fondation Suisa, SIS, AFAC, NFTYSCENE

The conversation between Aya Tarek and Simon Petermann that sparked the initiation of WAKING the GIANTS was inspired by the public discourse at the time. All eyes were on the announcement that COP27 would be taking place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Previous English Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, publicly warned that Alexandria, among other cities, would disappear and sink under water when the temperature rises only four degrees. From that point, Tarek and Petermann decided to collaborate on producing a research-based body of work on the effects of global climate change.

Tarek and Petermann received a project grant from Prohelvetia, which enabled them to collaborate with scientists from the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich. They collected data on climate change and categorized them under seven different scenes, specifically addressing CO2 - Temperature Correlation, Cryosphere,Hydrosphere, Heat and Drought, Irreversibility Tipping Points,Vulnerability of Society and Data/Science.

Petermann then sonified the data collected and analyzed by the scientists to create his own musical translation. Creating an ominous-sounding melody and distributing it across the exhibition space for the audience to hear from the moment they step into the space until they leave was conceptually essential for the artwork. Within the same space, the audience were presented with three massive screens showcasing animations by Tarek. The center piece depicted an amalgamation of the visualizations created from the scientific data and a black and white video animation. The two other screens presented the viewers with scenes related to biblically inspired visuals that depict the artist’s own perception of relationships between climate change and collective spiritual beliefs.