Latent Accumulations

In their ongoing research project Latent Accumulations, environmental media scholar Léa Perraudin and architect Iva Rešetar are concerned with the scales and phases of paraffin debris in this seemingly pristine natural environment. Their fieldwork in Neringa in collaboration with Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts focuses on paraffin pollution, engaging the material as unsettled in its movement. 

Paraffin pollution in the coastal environment of Curonian Spit is a recurring problem but difficult to detect and classify. A by-product of fossil fuel extraction and transport, paraffin is far from being the main pollutant in this area, however, it is a more latent, dispersed substance. Its characteristics bear a striking relationship to amber, which can also be found and collected along the coastline and with which it shares deep geological time scales. In the phase transitions between different states – between solid and liquid, slow and sudden, and between the events of pollution and their materialisation – the clumps of paraffin mixed with sand usually evade attention on a daily basis. 

Their research pursues investigative and participatory methods to trace, mediate and showcase these processes at thresholds of sea and land. To investigate and address this latent accumulation of paraffin on the coastline, Perraudin and Rešetar have organised three guided walks in January 2025 along the Baltic coastline near Nida, inviting audiences to map and collect paraffin residues and to share, exchange and connect through experiences, local knowledge, and memories of shifting landscapes and materials at thresholds.

The project gathers different voices of actors involved in maintaining the Neringa environment and witnessing these shifts, in ways that tell more about the present and future politics of material mixtures.

Together with material samples and conversation fragments, the outcomes are presented in a guest exhibition as part of muddy measures. when wetlands and heritage converse of the Centre for Advanced Studies 10–31 May, 2025 at Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin.

Organised by Iva Rešetar and Léa Perraudin from the »Matters of Activity« Cluster at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, as part of their NAC residency. The walks will be documented in video and sound recordings by Anna Luise Schubert.

Latent Accumulations is based at the interdisciplinary Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation) and pursued in collaboration with Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.