When an animal is encountered stranded on a beach, it becomes an avatar, acting as a form of testimony, compelling you to engage with your own cognitive dissonance and your position of privilege in the human/animal binary. As avatars they play a critical role by drawing to the surface, and infusing with emotional force, submerged stories of injustice. They become the public’s touchstone into the big blue and question indifference.
This multiple screen documentary began when director Janet Solomon picked up her camera and drove to see the third humpback to strand in the first week of August 2016. It focuses on an oil and gas seismic survey that took place off the eastern seaboard of South African coast, which was extended into the whale migration season that year. It advances the theme of nature as political asset and questions the scripts of consumptive economics embedded in South Africa’s governmental approaches to environmental policy.
Becoming Visible investigates the risks posed by unilateral, indiscriminate traumatizing noise exposure from marine seismic surveys to many marine species, and the vulnerability of fishery-based livelihoods to these impacts. The use of 3 screens means that the ocean is ever present throughout this moving exposé.
The full 33min BECOMING VISIBLE documentary can be streamed free at https://becomingvisible.africa/the-movie/
#becomingvisible ; #oceansnotoil ; #offshoreoilandgas
