Berg

Ellen Schroven is currently working on Berg: a landscape expedition, indebted to ‘Pataphysics and anchored in nine Belgian and Dutch villages and hamlets that bear the name ‘Berg’.

She explores the different mountain environments by looking, writing, dreaming, drawing and filming. She examines whether the speed at which the clouds pass by in the morning has an influence on the course of the rest of the day, compiles color maps of geological formations in sunken roads, and captures sounds with which the wind drives the light through the fluttering elms. , chases glaziers and variable damselflies in a fossil river valley, gradually copies the meandering Demer Line until nightfall, and explores the darkness of night in the only Mountain located in a valley.

To unravel potential escape routes and make them known to the world, the help of a Reed Player, a Pianist, a Philosopher and a Cosmonaut is called in.

The project focuses on connection – between people, between landscapes and between nine villages, which at first glance have nothing in common other than their names. By thinking back and forth across the boundaries of disciplines while making, walking, speaking, silently and playing, an attempt is made to create a kaleidoscopic image that does justice to the fragility, intensity and layered nature of the natural environment where we live. (no more than) a part of being.

Berg started with one word and expanded into a collective trajectory. Through retrospective intersections and a sailing trip that started in the 1930s, the expedition gradually also became a study of the duration between different points in time.