Stephen Ausherman (USA)
served as Artist-in-Residence for Bernheim Forest (Kentucky, 2012), Atelier Beeldend Vermogen (Germany, 2011), Cape Cod National Seashore (Massachusetts, 2010), Blue Sky Project (Illinois, 2008), and Cornucopia Art Center (Minnesota, 2007). He was also the 2005 Writer-in-Residence for Bernheim Forest, Devils Tower National Monument, and Buffalo National River. Ausherman received a 2008 New Visions Award in experimental film from the New Mexico Film Office. The resulting video exhibition was featured in the 2009 LAND/ART program in Albuquerque, with selections included in the 2009 WPA Experimental Media Series at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum.
Title: A Forest, 2012, 2:19
This video is not an attempt to illustrate a metaphor. To read it as such would be unkind to forest management agencies and a disservice to holocaust victims. The point is simply to show how remembering the past changes the way you perceive the present. Sometimes it can be unpleasant. However, the alternative—suppressing the past, forgetting history—can be far worse.In 2011, I accepted an arts residency in Walkenried, Germany. My enthusiasm for this location stemmed mainly from its proximity to the Green Belt, a nature reserve emerging from the former “death strip.” Tourist literature for the towns of Walkenried and Ellrich is scant. What little exists does not mention the concentration camp that lies between them. I stumbled upon its ruins on my first day of exploring the Green Belt.