Scorched Earth

Filipp Groubnov received a contribution to develop new work called Scorched Earth.

This project takes its starting point in the so-called "Zone Rouge" of France. The "Red Zone" as it translates from French, is a collection of areas where some of the heaviest battles of the World War One were fought. The battles fought over a century ago have made their lasting impact, both in the physical and the mental landscape. After the War, certain areas had to be closed off for public, as they contained tonnes of unexploded shells and toxins from the weapons used. In the present day, Zone Rouge is filled with a seemingly wild forest, but the toxic memory of the events long gone is still alive within it's landscape. Embedded in the soil in the form of chemicals and craters left from explosions. The project is attempting to trace the embodied memory of that area through physical and digital interactions and narratives.

Filipp is an interdisciplinary artist. He was born in Belarus in 1995, where he lived until moving to the Netherlands in 2015 to pursue a career of an artist. Filipp's work is informed by his background in science (having studied in the physics faculty of Belarussian State University), his fascination of the biological systems and their relation to the human symbolism.