Entering the gallery, I find a large tranquil space, suffused with the sounds of water and wildlife, unfamiliar language, the thrum of machinery and the banging of drums. Dimmed lights allow the films to glow from their positions on three walls, the polished white flooring softly reflecting the shifting colourways like peculiar aurora borealis reaching out to the audience seating before them.
The large interpretation panel redirects me from the room to read, ensuring that in spite of its beauty, I am made aware that this exhibition is not a frivolous undertaking. Hothouse Planet Breakout is both serious and alluring, immersing its audience into the frontline of environmental activism and collective resistance against extractive operations and mega-development projects. It speaks loudly of these issues, but perhaps even more loudly of humanity’s interconnection with environment, alternative systems, and commonalities and connectivity in the fight for environmental justice around the world. Artist Oliver Ressler has long dedicated himself to highlighting social movements fighting against the oppressive nature of globalisation and for a sustainable future, and his knowledge combined with artistic expertise makes the three films shown here a gratifying whilst challenging experience – climate injustice and systems change both made real by his storytelling prowess and enchanting audio-visual production.
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I turn again and survey the gallery. Curated by Dr Marianna Tsionki, care has been taken to eliminate distraction and allow each work space for consideration. On the left- and right-hand walls, at comfortable distances, are two large but not over-sized TV screens, each with two pairs of headphones and a well-crafted wooden bench stationed in front; space provided for the experience to be intimate, but also shared. Ahead, a large print, and to its right a white counter displaying publications of Ressler’s work, presenting various environmental issues and the protest and resistance campaigns around them.
I am compelled to turn my attention first to the main feature film, projected as to almost fill the remaining wall, drawn to its scale and beautiful imagery, made impatient to know more by the audio which fills the room. The image is clear and vivid but also seems softened, its mode of presentation suiting the ancient landscape’s magnitude of scale and importance. Having joined part way through, I let the audio and imagery envelop me into the setting – vast green hillsides shot with dashes of red and yellow flowers and flashes of tiny birds, cut through by a wide dusty road; large sculptural plants emerging into sharp foreground focus; the angled planes of the small town a contrast to the irregular nature all around – bringing me fully present to the narrative when it returns to the start.

‘Ancestral Future Rising’ (2023, 20min) begins with the sumptuous Ecuadorian landscapes obscured as though by impenetrable mist (or rendered a faint memory) as text rises. The text presents a determined case against corporate consumption and the disregard of ‘human and non-human life alike’ before fading into the haze. The forest, once revealed, also seems impenetrable – a stronghold – and yet we are quickly made aware of how this delicately balanced eco-system is threatened by activity which literally undermines its existence, along with that of the communities it supports.
Through the voices of community members, we are informed that despite metal mining companies being unsanctioned, the government refuses to intervene to halt the damage they cause. They describe motivations for active resistance, sharing an alternative vision of economically sustainable conservation: culture in harmony with nature. The primary concern is for water courses, which are being altered and reduced by the blasting and tunnelling undertaken illegally by corporations. ‘Water is life’, says Mauricio Reyes – a necessity for living, but also a link to land and ancestry. He voices fears for the effects on communities downstream. Fanny Duran states her position as ‘defender of water and nature’, both as local parishioner and within an international community of women, and describes the persistence of their struggle.
These monologues are concisely and calmly spoken with heart, and relay the situation powerfully. Ressler emphasises the core issue with footage of multiple water sites: gushing torrents tumbling loudly over a precipice, swirls and eddies around rocks in a lake. By a peaceful pool, the spiral and cross petroglyphs of the ancestors are shown (bearing similarity to the Prehistoric cup and ring carvings found across Europe). The road cut for mining machinery is a dry, desolate contrast to the vitality of the river bank.

Water is also employed to activate wording on protest banners, official resistance signage and the petroglyphs, coherently stressing connectivity through time and across different instances of community defiance. The water’s power is accentuated visually and with thundering audio as the film closes, and I find myself submerged in a tumbling close-up, the water becoming stilted and strange, almost as if broken, before the footage switches to a calmer swirling.
This film demonstrates power – the might of machinery, mining companies and political priorities pitted against the needs and rights of peoples and planet, but also the power in these peoples’ determined insistence on change and their attitudes of collaboration. I feel awed by their struggle and by the film’s imagery, the need to recognise and act upon oppressive commodification and climate injustice impressed upon me.
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The second film, ‘The Path is Never the Same’ (2022, 27min), also discusses the repercussions of extractive activity on water supply to an otherwise thriving forest, but now in Hambacher Forest near Cologne. Following potent poetic lines taken from writing by John Kinsella, it opens to a scene of vast surface-mining works, drained of colour, dusty and bleak beyond the tall golden grasses. A processing machine stands hungrily by, waiting to resume devouring the earth’s resources.
A red cross of resistance is suspended between two tall trees at the forest’s entrance; beyond, we are treated to vivid close-ups of fungi and flora, textured bark and mosaics of leaves in technicolour glory. Shots of nature entwining, moving hypnotically, luminous and pulsating – familiar scenes rendered as abstract paintings. More intimate than the projection, it is a slow visual delight, stilling me to its meditative pace.
Through the canopy, man-made structures combining simplicity and ingenuity are revealed – curious multi-storey treehouses equipped with glazed windows and chimneys, furnished with human warmth and nature’s contact and the paraphernalia of a simple but colourful life. We see the stark outcome of encroaching lignite extraction in contrast to the wild entanglement of the treetops, and the damage wrought in the unnaturally wide path cut like a wound by previous mechanical incursions into the forest.

Our guides in the film tell of their lengthy habitation in defence of this woodland, battles with the energy company, politics and police, and of caring for the ravaged path. We hear about the organic organisational rhythm at the camp, and, despite contrary appearances, the in-tune timings of its inhabitants – lessons in social dynamics and operational effectiveness learnt through observation of eco-systems. I find myself mesmerised by beautifully composed shots of platform paths wending through the branches and linking the lofty dwellings. I am equally absorbed by these insights into the evolution of camp life – a model for ‘a world that provides space for other worlds’ and ways of being, alternative to binary interpretations of nature as separate to culture, of growth solely in relation to financial accumulation.
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At this point I take respite from the intensive viewing and am gratified that instead of the usual corporate brands with poor human rights and water theft records, the University sells LemonAid and ChariTea products – a refreshing change that feels in tune with the messages being so eloquently shared in the adjacent gallery. Re-entering, I peruse the literature again, then turn my attention to the final film.
More of a documentary, though still visually compelling, ‘The Desert Lives’ (2022, 55min) centres upon an extensive protest camp where we witness conflict on the frontline, focussing on conversations between a few residents. Intergenerational discussions include camp cohorts reaching consensus on how to repel impending eviction, descriptions of democracy and individual roles, and Ressler himself asking about a near fatal arson attack as they consider the lengths to which some will go to disrupt and eliminate peaceful protest.

More dense in dialogue, with subtitles in English, the film required my full attention – but this doesn’t feel like a hardship, as it is a gripping tale well told. The people and campaign felt familiar, the use of news reports and social media posts an effective iteration of the divisive situation around the protest and the duality of public visibility to the cause. Again there is exploration of self-organising systems, and value placed on testing out models of collective living, decision making, and communication through creative activism. Together, the films discuss similar stories of adversity and campaigning, social movements and repression, but also camaraderie in collective action, ideals put into practice.
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The core issue of extraction of raw materials without care or mitigation, almost as if by divine right, is immense. In 2022 the world produced almost 2.8 billion tonnes of metal. Extractive industries in the UK comprise oil and gas production, mining and quarrying, and the Mineral Products Association estimates that 191.1 million tonnes of primary aggregates were ‘produced’ in the UK in 2022 alone. Global demand for minerals continues to surge, driven by infrastructure development, technological advancements and the growth of renewable energy industries.
Here, we live in cultures of commodity and convenience, individual needs often paramount regardless of impact on others, conducting daily activity with little care for the environment, or knowledge of what is committed to satisfy us. The people witnessed in Ressler’s films have made conscious efforts to remove themselves from these comforts in an attempt to still the machinery and the seemingly interminable model of acquisition and growth – a sacrifice, and yet less a choice than a keenly felt responsibility, though one in which happiness is found also. The selection of Ressler’s books, insightful and bespoke to each individual cause and purpose, ground the films in study: passion underpinned by data, research and experience. If anything more could have been given by this exhibition it would have been better access to this reading matter, which was fixed in place – a magnifying glass would have been useful.
There is a huge amount of material to absorb, and visitors may be unable to commit to watching all films in a single visit, but much of value can be gained from excerpts – even briefly connecting with the natural world and unconventional systems via digital interface has reverberations, and Ressler’s work engages quickly and deeply. It is crucial these issues are highlighted, and activism seen and valued in order to prompt change, making Leeds Arts University an ideal situation for showing this work – the students perfectly positioned to test new ground, to develop the means to communicate and provoke if they wish.
I conclude my visit by looking at the colossal still image, an engrossing, beautiful-whilst-troubling composite digital print in high detail of rich forest merging into a scene of brutal extractive mining, with allusions to dinosaur skeletons and bearing its apt title statement: We’re fossils in the making.
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Oliver Ressler: Hothouse Planet Breakout is on at Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds Arts University, 26 April – 3 August 2024.
Sarah Pennington is an artist, producer, researcher, facilitator and writer based in Hull.
This review is supported by Leeds Arts University.
Published 04.06.2024 by Benjamin Barra in Reviews
1,982 words