Storm from Paradise (1999)
Single-channel video projection, installation, sound. Courtesy: the artist. Uzlyau, Tuva singing with permission from Russian Radio. Acknowledgements: Miles Dudgeon.
Storm from Paradise literally references Walter Benjamin’s Angel of History, looking at the wreckage of the past while being propelled backwards into the future by a storm from paradise. Historical images from various journals, US archives and UNESCO magazines, combined with photographs by the artist, represent the machinery of production and war, a growing pile of discarded consumer goods, environmental catastrophe, alienation and poverty. Projected through layers of transparent scrim that suggest the dimension of time, the artwork raises questions about the political, social and scientific choices made during the past few decades, as ell as the philosophies and discoveries that have been driving these choices.
