An Elastic Contiuum: rubber, gender and power, is an ongoing artistic research project that explores how rubber, an organic substance linked to the rise of capitalism, imperialism and modernity, embodies the ways in which humans and non-humans are intimately intertwined with the military-industrial complex.
Through a series of acts that interweave research with moving image, sound, sculpture, installation and text, the project is an attempt to make tangible the inextricable links that exist between people, plants, politics and power.
Taraxacum Kok-saghyz, also known as Russian dandelion, is a plant endemic to Kazakhstan that contains rubber. Bethan Hughes' project traces the intricate journey of this humble 'weed', from the Tien Shan mountains in Kazakhstan to collective farms in the USSR, greenhouses in Auschwitz and the laboratories of multinational rubber corporations in Germany, and the stories of the women connected to this journey.
The installation combines a multi-part sound sculpture embedded with a single-channel film. The work also includes a short publication of text and images that explores the myriad connections between people and plants and how they become entangled and objectified in the machinations of politics, war and commerce.
Following research on the three hundred female prisoners who were commissioned to grow Koksaghyz in Auschwitz and visits/filming at the Botanical Garden in Berlin and the Institute of Plant Biology and Biotechnology at the University of Münster, the artist conducted a period of research and filming in Almaty in the summer of 2023.
Artist selected for the EMAP European Media Art Platform 2023.
