Naïmé Perrette – Both Ears To The Ground (2021)

“The city of Berezniki is sinking into the earth”, claims the press about an industrial town built on top of salt mines. The sinkholes caused by the mining industry are now filled by water, hidden behind fences – a background noise to be controlled, overcome and forgotten. While the image of this “sinking town” has become a symbol of environmental collapse for outsiders, the inhabitants go about their daily lives, in a city whose local culture is dependent on industries.

Biography

Naïmé Perrette (b. 1989, France) lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. Perrette is an artist who creates multi-layer spaces that explore human relations to their social and geographical environments, using video, digital collages and installations. In her works, she has engaged with the role of labour in the construction of identity, and with the way societies map, consider and act on their territories, offering insights into their underlying values. The artist has an MA in Cinema Animation from ENSAD, Paris, and is a former resident of the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. In 2016, Naïmé was awarded the Werkbijdrage Jong Talent from the Mondriaan Fund. Her work has been shown at international institutions such as the 5th Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art (Ekaterinburg), Wiels (Brussels), HKW (Berlin), Eye Filmmuseum (Amsterdam), and the Museum of Modern art (Rio de Janeiro).