Last Things is a tribute to the grace of geology; to chondrites, crystals and minerals that existed long before there were organisms, single-celled organisms and animals - not to mention humans. And they will still exist when humans no longer exist. Extinction and emergence go hand in hand and the distant past could hardly be distinguished from the distant future. In this sense, the homage is also an encouraging speech at an open grave and perhaps also an invitation to humility. It is also a tribute to life, "which has its origins in the interaction of minerals with water and carbon dioxide", as the voice of the scientist explains off-screen.
Q&A with Deborah Stratman and Susanne Guggenberger:
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Deborah Stratman
Multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker Deborah Stratman's work explores relationships between people and landscape, history and memory, and the construction of knowledge and perception. Her more than forty films deal, for example, with freedom, surveillance, public speech, sinkholes, levitation, orthoptera, raptors, comets, evolution, extinction, exodus and sisterhood. Deborah Stratman lives in Chicago.
