70% of Coastlines suffer some degree of erosion due to climate change and human activity. In Making New Land, Thomas Pausz amplifies the contemporary transformations of coastal ecosystems and landscapes with a series of artefacts, collages and video works.

Making New Land is accompanied by an essay in theory-fiction set in a near future, where the oceans have disappeared. In these devastated landscapes, a first person narrator investigates unsolved biological enigmas on Earth and on Mars. In the footsteps of a fictional group of anarcho-botanists called Sea for Space, the story alternates a melancholic longing for the beauty of intertidal and coastal lifeforms with futuristic visions of new species engineered by humans as new companions.
The scenario explores archetypal figures of plant-human coexistence: from the botanical gaze to a nostalgic longing for connection, and from the hubris of genetical engineering to the dream of a post-humanism communion with the vegetal. The fictional story is interwoven with scholarly references and a critical discussions of artistic and literary works dealing with the fauna, flora and mythologies of the seaside, which form the outlines of an ‘Intertidal Aesthetics’.

Making New Land was exhibited in the group sow Nature in Transition, Shifting Identity curated by Hanna Styrmisdóttir & Hulda Stefánsdóttir at the Nordic House Reykjavík 17.04.2021 – 01.08.202.
Glass Blowing with Carissa Baktai ; Aditional film editing: Vikram Pradha; Studio Intern: Aymeric Duriez.