SOLD OUT (2022)

Video Art by Betty Sargeant

Karachi Biennale, PAKISTAN. October-November 2022

Duration: 1:43. Medium: 4K videography, microscopy (microscope imagery), typographic design, field recordings, audio composition and digital design.

SOLD OUT: Nature vs Stuff. The discordant aesthetics of this video artwork reflects the artist’s alarm at the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest. The Amazon operates as the lungs of our planet, yet we, as a global community, do little to preserve this crucial natural environment.

SOLD OUT features Betty Sargeant’s video footage of the Amazon Jungle (Brazil), her microscope imagery of Amazonian insects, her local field recordings within an audio soundscape, and her typographic statements, reflecting current Amazonian advertising terminology. The audio features hydrophone (underwater) recordings of hyper-species of fish in Balbina Dam (Amazonia), recordings of industrial transport and field jungle recordings.

This video artwork contains audio and visuals collected by Betty while she was in Amazonia (Brazil) with LabVerde Artist Immersion in the Amazon Program. She came to this landscape with presence and intention and pays respect to the culture, lives and struggles of the peoples and lands of Amazonia. In making and presenting this artwork, Betty gratefully acknowledge First People’s custodianship and connection to landscape.

SOLD-OUT is part of a series of video artworks by Betty Sargeant that address ways that consumerism is negatively impacting our natural environments. BUY-SELL is a video artwork featuring Batticaloa Sri Lanka. It was developed during her time at Dinacon 2022.  WOW! STUFF! is a video artwork featuring Batticaloa Sri Lanka. It was also developed during her time at Dinacon 2022.

Betty Sargeant lives and works on the unceded land of the Yaluk-ut Weelam clan who are Boon Wurrung people. We pay respect to ancestors, elders and communities.