Ghosts of the Forest Elephants
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| Admission: Free of charge |
| Planning: Duration: 60 min |
| Accessibility: Accessible for wheelchairs |
| Venue: Foyer, Ground Floor |
GHOSTS OF THE FOREST ELEPHANTS is a video installation created specifically for the LCD panels in the foyer of the Humboldt Forum about a lone elephant that is thought to roam the indigenous coastal forests of South Africa.
There used to be hundreds of biologically unique elephants in the Southern Afrotemperate Forests of the Western Cape, which have been steadily exterminated over the last 200 years by the colonial woodcutters and hunters that arrived from Europe. Today, only one lonely female is said to remain and she wanders the ancient forest paths like a fading memory of her ancestral herd.
The installation is formed of ghostly images of the old elephant trails and ephemeral found video footage from infrared cameras seemingly capturing the last elephant. The video renews itself by means of an algorithm, evolving autonomously like nature itself, in which pixels fade and form anew, becoming fading echoes of the original image, like the memory of the solitary elephant roaming the paths of her ancestors.
It is a generative video installation about absence, ghosts and the destruction caused by the colonial legacy in this region made in collaboration with schnellebuntebilder and support by SANparks and photography by Samuel Lahu.
(Teboho Edkins)
Teboho Edkins (b. 1980) grew up in southern Africa and lives and works in Cape Town and Berlin.
He studied photography and fine arts at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, South Africa, and film at Le Fresnoy Studio National des Arts Contemporains in Tourcoing, France. This was followed by studies in directing at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin (dffb).
Teboho Edkins’ films have been shown at many festivals, in group and solo exhibitions, including Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern, London; South London Gallery, London; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Berlinische Galerie, Berlin; Weserburg-Museum für Moderne Kunst, Bremen; Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
Among the more than 500 film festivals where his films have been presented are the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, and the International Film Festival (IFFR) in Rotterdam.
His films have also been acquired by several public and private art collections, including the Goetz Collection in Munich, the von Kelternborn Collection in Frankfurt, and the KAI 10 | Arthena Foundation in Düsseldorf.
2021: The Orphanage, 8’ 27” min
2020: Shepherds, 28’ min
2020: Days of Cannibalism, 79’ min
2017: I am Sheriff, 28’ min
2016: Initiation, 11’ min
2015: Coming of Age, 63’ min
2013: Gangster Backstage, 38’ min
2011: Gangster Project, 54’ min
2011: Thato, 27’ 35” min
2008: Kinshasa 2.0, 11’07” min
2006: Gangster Project 1, 7’30” min
2005: True Love, 28’ min
2004: Ask Me I’m Positive, 48’ min