Julia Lazarus
Julia Lazarus
Julia Lazarus is an artist, film maker and curator based in Berlin. She studied at the University of Arts, Berlin and at the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles. In her recent video works, she takes a closer look at local political decisions that question people's relationship with nature. Using the means of the documentary camera, the framing of her films and video installations usually expands documentary paradigms, offering not only a reflection of reality but also an approach to the construction of that reality. Her films and video installations have been on display at film festivals and in exhibitions. She is a founding member of the Radical Film Network Meeting Berlin. She has most recently been associated as postgraduate fellow at the Berlin Centre for Advanced Studies in Arts and Sciences at the Berlin University of the Arts and continues her association with the Centre to work on the publication of her artistic research project.
In the framework of her artistic research project „Conditions of drought – Investigating the many levels of water“ Julia Lazarus had taken a closer look at the issues of the sinking groundwaterlevels in Brandenburg. The area state outside of Berlin had experienced repeated periods of drought in the past years. Rising temperatures and lack of rainfall were exacerbated by Brandenburg's sandy soils. In some areas the groundwater level has since fallen so low, that salty deep water reaches the surface. A phenomenon partly due to climate change, but also to the large-scale renaturation projects in the nearby former mining areas and to the countries geological history. And scientists are predicting even fewer rainy days and much higher temperatures in the future, which will further reduce the water level in the region. How will the municipalities in the region solve the water issues? Fragments of the Political debates as well as the personal stories of people and farmers living of the land, will be interwoven with the statements of scientists who are apt to propose solutions to the issue, but are unable to foresee, which ones will be applied. But the main protagonist of the work is the water itself. More precisely, the large body of groundwater that lies beneath everyone and is coveted by all.