Sol Archer

Ten Thousand Summers Stolen Sun is a drape made from cotton and dyed with discarded maize leaves. During centuries of colonization, maize (corn) was appropriated from indigenous communities in South and Central America, who had developed many varieties of the plant over thousands of years. The plant is now largely grown in Northern Europe and used for producing biogas. This cultivation is degrading the soil and perpetuating political and economic systems irreconcilable with an inhabitable planet.

In On a bare rock by the ocean you will never hear anything but birds whose cries blend with the sound of winds Sol Archer follows volunteers maintaining the Tropische Kas, a greenhouse in Beetsterzwaag dating from the 1860s. Footage of the group at work is accompanied by vocal-recreations from the archives of Hercules Florence. In 1831 Florence transcribed Brazilian animal calls to send to French Scientific institutes. Constructed as a spectacle of nature, the tropical greenhouse is a montage of discontinuous seasons, climates, and ecosystems. Today, the greenhouse is seen as a composite landscape of ecologies inherited from the colonial period.

Sol Archer is a Netherlands based artist working in collaboration with professional and non-professional groups. Frequently working with video, Sol focuses on how individuals and communities constitute themselves through their association with collective cultural activity. His work has been exhibited, amongst others, at GoShort, Nijmegen, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin and TENT, Rotterdam.