"To recall the day that the earthquake happened is to recall the immensity of devastation, beyond what one could imagine, beyond what words could explain. I can’t even tell you, I can’t find the language to convey the scenes of that day... There was a vacuum, a vacuum of air, of understanding, of words. And then of course there wasn’t. And then of course the sea came back. And it told its own story."
These are the words spoken by the geolinguist—a reader of the earth—about the 2004 earthquake that occurred in the Indian Ocean. The earthquake triggered a series of tsunamis with waves up to 30 meters high, which inundated coastal communities and killed hundreds of thousands of people.
It was declared one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.
The places where the tsunamis hit were already under environmental stress. Hurricanes, flooding, drought, cyclones, and earthquakes caused or exacerbated by human-made climate change have decimated communities and resources in these regions. These are regions that have been marked by colonization leading to economic and political unrest and loss of territory.
The gravity of these events cannot be ignored. And then the sea came back is a story told of this time, and these events. It is a story of the sea unfolding, the moment before the tsunami struck. Told through the narrative of the geolinguist it focuses on the intimate and lasting effects of environmental change and dispossession on bodies, experiences and lives.
'The lands on which this story was composed belongs to the Wurundjeri peoples. Their sovereignty was never ceded; this land was stolen from them. This is a theft that is historic and ongoing. We pay all respect to the owners of these lands. The displacement of people from their lands is at the heart of colonization. The changes occurring today across the global environment is unequivocally tied to this displacement.' - Anja Kanngieser and Polly Stanton
And then the sea came back was created in partnership with Liquid Architecture.
Burrow is a collaborative project between Anja Kanngieser (UK/AUS) and Polly Stanton (AUS), bringing together radiophonic narrative with sound composition and visual documentary. Born from a desire to explore what a feminist geophilosophy of sound would be, it takes the Earth as a provocation for thought and political intervention.