Artist, videographer, researcher, and author Susan Schuppli is interested in the capacity of objects to be both agents and custodians of traumatic or violent events, such as war, climate crisis, and ecological disaster. Through a transdisciplinary approach based on an alliance of scientific and Indigenous expertise and the collaboration of local communities, Schuppli sheds light on the agency of these non-living actors — objects, technologies, natural resources — to shape the framework of historical discourse. Proposed as material archives in her documentaries, these “passive” witnesses encourage serious critical reflection on contemporary existence by making tangible the consequences of otherwise abstract politics.
