soul flashes: ঌ fire ঌ cycle

We are pleased to share that Adrien Missika’s Darvaza will be on view in the Black Box at IKOB – Museum of Contemporary Art, Eupen, Belgium.

 

From 21 June to 20 September, Missika’s work will be presented as part of ঌ fire ঌ cycle, the third of four cycles that make up the soul flashes programme, bringing artist films to the IKOB Black Box. Featuring works by Barbara & Michael Leisgen, Adrien Missika, and Malena Sz.

 

“In Turkmenistan in 1971, Soviet geologists accidentally exposed a cavern of natural gas when a mining platform collapsed. Loathe to release the toxic emissions to the atmosphere, they set it aflame; and there it has burned ever since, nicknamed by locals ‘the door to hell’. Missika’s film explores this infernal portal through a series of long, slow takes, each around a minute in length, in reverse progression from a close-up of sulphurous clouds to a final shot of the barren surroundings – the pit a thick, red scar on a dead world. The film presents something so Biblical in its horror that we assume it must somehow be a fake, a miniature, a mock-up or some other special effect, but in fact it is terrifyingly real: an everyday, man-made Armageddon.” Robert Barry

 

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More information

19 Jun 2026