Monday evening, composer Benedicte Maurseth (CRF 2016) and visual artist Mikhail Karikis (CRF 2016) took the floor to demonstrate the communicative power of art in their full-length presentations.
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| Benedicte Maurseth and Mikhail Karikis share further insight into their work during a Q and A. |
Benedicte Maurseth kicked off the evening with traditional Norwegian pieces brought to life by her Hardanger fiddle, and her beautiful voice. She played many folk songs, including some religious hymns that have been integral parts of the Norwegian oral tradition for hundreds of years. She closed her presentation with a more contemporary piece that she composed herself. During this concert, the feeling she poured into her music was inspired by and dedicated to those who suffered the ravages of last week's earthquake in Central Italy.
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| There are over twenty traditional Norwegian Fiddle tunings, and Benedicte compares the qualities of each of them to colors, as they evoke different responses in the spectator. Maurseth stated that her performance that evening was blue. |
Mikhail Karikis followed this stirring performance with a screening of his film "The Children of Unquiet." Set amid the industrial decay of Lardarello in Tuscany, the film depicts a sort of "children's take-over" of the once thriving area. The children are filmed in the abondoned villages and around the crumbling power plant, playing, reading, and imitating the sounds of the geysers and machines; their innocence a stark conterpoint to the economic and ideological ruins we continue to leave for future generations.
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| Mikhail Karikis gives us a brief history of Lardarello-It boomed in the 60's with the world's first state-of-the-art geothermal plant and living facilities that attracted many workers to the area. The 80's saw mass unemployment due to automation of labor, and the in 90's began an exodus that in some villages resulted in complete desertion. |
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