Films for Crossroads

by Halina Kliem
3-channel video installation, endless loop, 2025
Window projections and projection in our library
  After sunset, the large bay windows—filled with natural light during the day and situated opposite the former early-20th-century industrial building once owned by a German immigrant—offer a view into the iridescent, bushy refuge of the Ballona Wetlands, Los Angeles’s last urban wetland.

Connecting the two watery ecologies—Montreal’s St. Laurent River and the Ballona, LA’s last remaining wetland—Films for Crossroads was filmed over the past six months following the LA wildfires. Mirroring layers of longing and belonging, and reflecting acts of caring for our surroundings and each other, the installation doesn’t seek a central focus but rather its potential to be both background and foreground, depending on the viewer's engagement. Streams, both natural and digital, transport nutrients and knowledge, nurturing creativity and change.

Like in any creative process, minerals and sediments flow in rhythmically, and visual patterns mix like the saltwater and rainwater of the wetland and the Saint Lawrence River, establishing a decentralized refuge where many temporalities, subjective beings, and small bodies touch each other.

The project imagines that another world is possible, exploring both new and familiar places, the future of coexistence, and meaningful collaboration. With physical filters and technology always visible, each sensor is subjective—there is no one-size-fits all solution.

Films for Crossroads is specifically created for the intersection of Saint-Laurent Boulevard and Ontario Street, which will be part of the visual environment and taken into consideration by exploring the possibilities of improvisational play and rhythm.

Inspired by the metropolis Los Angeles’ flaky light, its sun-washed colors, and raw wilderness, the in situ installation Films for Crossroads engages multiple sensory perceptions in flux, imagining how our complex environment might appear through the plentiful eyes of bees, dragonflies, and birds, seeking soft intersections of human and non-human perceptions.

Did you know that bees can see ultraviolet light, dragonflies process the passage of time much faster than humans—at 200 to 300 images per second—and mosquitos can see warmth?

Curated by Tatiana Braun. 

Credits:
Our hive is alive with Ballona Wetland Conservancy, Jim Burton, California Department of Fish & Wildlife, Chapman University, Checkpoint Charlie Foundation, Eliza Chojnacka, Todd Bear, Alonso Vargas & EcoKai, Dr. Dan Cooper (Cooper Ecological Monitoring), Joyce Dallal, Sebastian Díaz de León, Martin Ebner, Krista Figacz, Renée A. Fox, Floating University Berlin, Friends of Ballona Wetlands, Fulcrum Arts, Fabian Harb (ABC Dinamo), Goethe Institut Montreal, Institute for Jewish Creativity & Sagi Refael (AJU), Karina Johnston (Bay Foundation), Gilly Karjevsky, Robert Adee Koch (Cornell Ornithology Lab), Rafal Krol, Labocine LABOratory + CINEma, Andrea Loselle, Frank Masi & Brent Imai, Milo, Shelly Moore, Dr. Margaret O’Brien (Environmental Data Initiative), Agata Polak, Dr. Edith Read (E Read & Associates: Ecological Surveys/Restoration), Joachim Reck, Jamie Robertson, Dr. Shelley Stall (American Geophysical Union), Stiftung Kunstfonds and Neustart Kultur, Dr. Michael Stocker (Ocean Conservation Research), Nathan Sullivan, Lorraine Suzuki, The Puffin Foundation, Johannes Polster (Freie Universität Berlin), Southern California Academy of Sciences, Rosario Talevi, Dr. Cynthia Tedore (University of Hamburg), Holly Tempo, Lynn Warshafsky & Venice Arts, and 18th Street Art Center.