FF - Live at the Fridericianum

DokfestForum: Klara Hobza – On Slaughter

Wednesday, Nov 13, 2024, 6.30 pm – 8 pm

Screening and Talk

DokfestForum takes place in cooperation with the Fridericianum and directs its focus on the intersection of film, documentary, and visual art. Over two consecutive evenings, a selection of videos by Klara Hobza and Eli Cortiñas are presented. The screenings are followed by a talk, where the artists each discuss the ideas and strategies behind their respective works.

In her recently published short film On Slaughter (2023, 16 mins), Klara Hobza accompanies Markus, a farmer in the remote forests of Sweden, as he slaughters two sheep. During the slaughter process, Markus provides profound insight into his personal experiences, skills, and knowledge from a life dedicated to living with and off the land. He reflects upon memories of what he learned from stubborn old farmers and people in the Siberian wilderness. Through On Slaughter, viewers gain a deep understanding of Markus’s thoughtful approach to keeping of animals—including the act of slaughter—as being an inherent part of a healthy ecosystem.

After the film screening, Klara Hobza gives a short slide presentation of her subsequent, eponymous book, that aims to expand the traditions of survival books and field guides. Employing visual methods of nature study and anatomy drawing, Hobza infuses the how-to-format with the subjective and emotional experience, which she understands to be equally as important to survival as our objective, practical skills. The artist highlights the inherent severity of the slaughter, while simultaneously allowing the process to be viewed with ardent curiosity and fascination.

The book presentation is followed by a talk with the artist, in which she goes into further depth around her artistic reasons for making On Slaughter and invites the audience to discuss the complex ethical questions raised by this project. The discussion might challenge the modern detachment from death and meat production and confront the audience with realities of life on the land. Questions related to individual emotional and moral complexities around self-understanding in its connection to the ethics of food consumption might also be raised.

When asked how it feels to slaughter an animal, Markus answered: “Every time I slaughter, I think it’s something, hmm … it’s something … it’s a feeling. The part where I feel nervous to kill the animal or something, that has long ago gone away … in a way. But I think the whole act in itself, with the taking off the skin and opening the body and seeing all this inside and … I think the whole act—as a whole—is kind of beautiful, in a strange way.”

Film: On Slaughter, 16:37 minutes.
Language film and talk: English.
Moderation: Luise von Nobbe (Curatorial Department, Fridericianum).
Admission is free. No registration required.
With a Dokfest Festival Accreditation, admission to Melvin Edwards’s exhibition Some Bright Morning is free.
The film and the book On Slaughter supported by Stiftung Kunstfonds.

 

 

Photo Credit

Photo Credit

Photo Credit