TOPO TERRA LABORATOR
Areej Huniti
HUNITI GOLDOX is an artist duo consisting of Areej Huniti and Eliza Goldox. In their practice they are interested in how political systems, transitions and violence are affecting water bodies and landscapes. Through contextual examinations of geopolitical realities, marginalized oral histories and mythologies they create films, videos, VR-works, installations, conversations, texts, in addition to formats that can involve different voices and beings, such as workshops, excursions and interventions. This stems from the desire to create moments for collective imagining and re-imagining to collapse dominant narratives and fixed geographies. More specifically they engage with the notion of enforced mutation as a way to attend to present social and ecological struggles while demanding speculative answers to confront systematic oppression. They started this with a project on the buried water stream in the center of Amman/ Jordan then they extended to the swamp lands and mediterranean coast of Tunis/ Tunisia, the artificial lake land of Leipzig, the urban development projects around Tirana River and the Vistula River in Poland.
Their work was exhibited at the Institute for Postnatural Studies, Madrid (2023); Hauser & Wirth, Menorca (2023); TBA Academy/ Ocean Uni, Madrid (2022); Tirana Art Lab, Tirana (2022); D21, Leipzig (2021); Sheffield Film Festival, Sheffield (2021); School Of Waters/ Biennale Mediterranea, San Marino (2021); SomoS Art House, Berlin (2020); SPARC* Spazio Arte Contemporanea, Venice (2020); Darat al Funun, Amman (2019); MMAG Foundation, Amman (2019), The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman (2019) among others.
TOPO TERRA LABORATOR presents a screening exploring new or hidden terrains shaping geographies and material resistance. Framed within a fictional laboratory setting, it responds to a call from future earth inhabitants by creating an archive of digital and physical samples, conveyed through stories, screenings, and matter. Drawing from our research on ecology, enforced mutation, and water politics spanning Jordan, Tunisia, East Germany, and Albania over five years, it navigates various touchpoints, revealing the interconnectedness of ecological and geopolitical realities, as well as intervention and violence.
In a world where human voice holds supremacy, we focus on the biographies of rivers, seas, landscapes, and more-than-human beings, exploring their choreographies, performativity, visibilities, and disappearances. Transformations of landscapes remain opaque yet invisible in territories of ecological destruction. Matter's mutation serves as silent resistance against human aggression, while water bodies' stories become entangled with colonial capitalist modernity, giving rise to endless myths around liquids.
Embedded within is "The Rise and Fall of Water," examining infrastructures shaping interpretations of the world while rendering others invisible. In 2023, our research delved into ancient timekeeping devices reliant on water's fall, such as the water clock. This project critically engages with colonial perspectives, investigating how territorial dominance is expressed through human-made structures like time zones and dammed rivers, prompting reflection on scientific and indigenous knowledge systems.
"The Rise and Fall of Water" reenacts a water clock, symbolizing a shift towards elastic territory transcending traditional boundaries. Through it, we explore methods of world-building prioritizing interconnectedness of elemental forces, departing from industrialized doctrines.