“I long for the sound of the sea that lulled me to sleep as a child. I long to gaze at the horizon for hours and spit cherry stones into tall, dry grass. Sometimes, as I walk down the street, I get swallowed up by the breeze of a passing scent and spat into my childhood. I would like to spit myself into that period right now and find refuge in my grandmother’s kitchen, escaping the glaring sun. I wear my mother’s earrings and on my fingers, her mother’s rings. In my heart, the murmur. Where does it carry me?”

“The Darkest Hour” is a multi-sensory experience consisting of a 3-channel audiovisual installation and a spatial intervention. At the center of the room installation is an accessible wooden shelter with vintage TVs inside, creating a contrast to the cold blue atmosphere of a large video projection outside the construction.

For this work, Alina Lutz traveled to the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria and documented artifacts in the form of videos, field recordings, and drawings. Due to political reasons, Crimea is currently inaccessible from Europe; therefore, the perspective of the work is one of distance and longing for something out of reach. It explores the quality of memories and impermanence.