Kem Care - Mount Mound Refuse

24 March 2018

Kem Care presents a sound and poetry performance by Jessika Khazrik. “Mount Mound Refuse” began as a multi-lingual poem exploring encounters of the body and the global economy through memories of toxicity, adolescent love, black metal and computational connectivities. 

Set on the edge of a quarry neighbouring the artist’s home, it re-visits the ecocidal dumping of toxic waste and promises of reconstruction both on the internet and in the built environment. Invisible animals, several pronouns, friends and lovers known as R__O and Little Arsonist stroll spatio-linguistic construction sites while unearthing the history of pleasure, profit and refuse. The young, secret lovers haphazardly share grounds with poisonous trades that are tacitly legitimized by global politics and local militia.

Voiced in Arabic, English, Italian and hybrid tongues that were encountered while investigating the toxic trade, language within the composition becomes a material witness to the limits of translation, desire and place. Acronyms of the chemical formulas encountered in the forest are turned into verses of poetry. The composition is partially made through field recordings taken wherever it is performed, as well as sounds that the artist recorded between the ages of 13 and 16.