Landscape Narratives of Denmark and China

Afterimages – wetlands, climate adaptation, and land use changes in two Danish water systems

The Ribe River System Film is based on a funded collaborative planning process from 2021-22 with four municipalities in Southern Jutland, Denmark, along the 1000 km² water body known as The Ribe River System. The project offers an immersive exploration of low-lying Danish agricultural areas, which were once marsh and bog lands, forming parts of several river valleys running from east to west, with Ribe River Valley, Gram River Valley, and Gels River Valley being the largest on the national level. These river valleys are threatened by cloudbursts and rising groundwater levels. The Danish government has decided to take 100,000 hectares of low-lying farmland out of production and plans to raise forests to cover a quarter of Danish territory. This decision puts significant pressure on the land, raising concerns about windmill farms, solar panel farms for green transition, food production, and visual and aesthetic landscape impacts. These factors all exert pressure on these cultural river landscapes, which, in their spatial layout, represent the culture of cultivating nature – the inherited common Danish built environment.

The Ribe River System Film in this exhibition comprises a trilogy of three filmic sketches: Pilot film Ribe Å, Pilot film Gram Å, and Pilot film Gels Å. All were developed through a filmmaking process that merges and overlays drone film sequences with ground film sequences, along with present and historical maps and information. These elements act as emergent assemblages, creating emotional affects that immerse the viewer in cinematic interpretations of the past, present, and future. Emotional affects emerge from the interplay of vision, motion, and sound in the drone/on-ground overlays. By emphasizing historical structures in combination with the present and illustrating their slow evolution, the assemblage brings a potential future landscape into view. This leaves a lingering impression, akin to what are termed 'afterimages' – marks from a previous image that are repeated in the subsequent image.

The River Gudenå Valley Pilot Film is developed as part of The River Gudenå Committee’s commissioned project, "Landscape Analysis for the River Gudenå Valley" (2021-22). The film covers one section of the river, from Langå to Randers. Working with film montages has opened new perspectives rooted in people’s feelings, affections for, and impacts on landscapes and nature. Montages of historical maps, along with the addition of text, such as plant species and future scenarios, strengthen the understanding that landscape changes and the (re)creation of wetlands represent a human-place (nature) relationship inscribed in the history of this territory. Sensory impacts and care, as common points of view for practice-based action research and co-creation in matters of climate adaptation, come to the fore through the cinematic work. These projects underscore filmmaking as a method that nurtures emotional affect through the emergence of otherwise imperceptible imprints, potentially illuminating a sustainable path forward.

The nature-culture intertwinement of Chongqing

The project transitions to the unique urban-rural interface in Chongqing, China. This region is characterized by rapidly transforming landscapes, ecological degradation, and socio-spatial inequalities. The landscapes of this urban-rural interface, known as desakota, around Chongqing consist of a mosaic assemblage of forests, mountains, valleys, and 90-degree perpendicular rivers crossing the mountain ridges. These features provide the foundation for a unique nature-culture ecological intertwinement that has supported human habitation for centuries. This project delves into the effects of rapid urbanization and industrialization on natural landscapes and traditional rural lifestyles, capturing the dynamic interplay between nature and culture. It builds on a PhD project that includes five films focusing on the transformation of regional landscapes, and the water and soil narratives in desakota areas, and their future imaginations. Four of these films are exhibited here: the prologue film, the water film, the soil film, and the future imaginations of several zoom-in sites.

The project begins with the prologue film, which documents a trip along the Yangtze River from the city center to the periphery and ultimately to the desakota area. The continuous transformation of the landscapes along the Yangtze River showcases how urban expansion and industrial practices have led to the disappearance of natural habitats and the erosion of cultural heritage. The water and soil films explore the territory's vernacular landscape systems (Beitang) and their interconnection with surrounding ecological assemblages. These ecological assemblages in the territory are not merely terrains but are living testaments to the symbiotic relationship that communities have shared with their surroundings.

However, as the relentless tide of urbanization and industrialization sweeps over these desakota areas, the films capture the stark transformation this territory faces, particularly its rapidly disappearing vernacular landscape systems like Beitang, the loss of natural habitats, and the slow erosion of age-old cultural heritage. Nature, in its unpredictability, has dealt a series of blows to this already fragile environment. The film of design strategies is a collection of 12 film clips presenting proposed future scenarios, designed through animation, drawing on top of, and further editing the previous films. This redrawing and reimagining aim to create sustainable and equitable frameworks that address existing water management, biodiversity, and social disparities while also tackling the challenges of current urbanization, industrialization, and intensive farming pressures.

The multi-screen format

The multi-screen setup offers a panoramic perspective, enabling viewers to witness the compounded adversities from both human interventions, natural disasters, future needs, former practices and knowledge and future potential for re-connection and knowledge production. A crucial technique employed in the post-editing of the projects is the use of overlay techniques, which are instrumental in conveying the layered complexities of these landscapes. In the Chongqing project, the overlay of regional water-mountain mappings on drone footage illustrates the interconnections between different ecological assemblages on regional scale. Similarly, in the Danish projects, the overlaying of drone film sequences with ground film sequences, combined with historical maps, creates a rich, multi-dimensional perspective of the river system. These overlays not only enhance the visual storytelling but also provide a sensory and embodied experience like being within these landscapes, thus emphasizing both the landscape and the screens as mediums affecting a viewer.

Additionally, the exhibition features multi-layered silk prints that visually represent these overlays. The transparent silk material allows viewers to look through and engage with the layered mappings, creating a tactile and immersive experience. This method vividly illustrates the intricate details of the regional mappings and historical overlays, enhancing the narrative depth of the films. More importantly, these narratives will engage in dialogues with each other. The multi-layered silk screens, together with the digital screens, will constitute an echo between each other, providing a rich, interactive experience that underscores the thematic parallels and interconnections between the two regions.