Salt Beyoğlu screenings to examine link between cinema, nature

  ISTANBUL

Salt Beyoğlu will launch This Porous Earth, a multidisciplinary program of film screenings, talks and workshops on July 4, examining the connections between cinema, ecology and the natural world through experimental filmmaking and scientific inquiry.

Presented as part of L’Internationale’s Museum of the Commons initiative, the free public program brings together artists, filmmakers and researchers for a series of events running through July 15. The schedule features three short film selections, a feature-length documentary, panel discussions and hands-on workshops that explore landscapes, biodiversity, plant life and climate change from both artistic and scientific perspectives.

The opening event at Salt Beyoğlu’s Open Cinema will showcase Shorts – Underground, curated in collaboration with Yavuz Gözeller, founding director of Istanbul Experimental. The screening will be followed by filmmaker and curator Emmanuel Lefrant’s talk, Rethinking the Materiality of Film.

On July 8, audiences will watch Carl Brown’s 2006 documentary Blue Monet, which reflects on Claude Monet’s enduring fascination with skies, water and water lilies. The program continues on July 11 with the short film selection Faces of the Earth, accompanied by talks from researcher Burçin Çıngay on underground ecosystems, academic Mesut Kırmacı on the ecological role of mosses in forest biodiversity and artist-researcher Karel Doing on the relationship between plants and visual culture.

A workshop led by biologist and designer Meral Cidan on July 12 will introduce participants to natural dye-making using pomegranate, avocado and walnut-based materials.

The closing events on July 15 will feature the short film program Symbiosis, followed by presentations on the future of seeds in a changing climate by agricultural engineer Alptekin Karagöz, alternative image-making techniques using organic materials by artist Edd Carr and a concluding talk by artist-researcher Müge Yıldız on moving images and living organisms.

All events are free and open to the public.