Hope & Emma Critchley

For their Commissioned Work, Berlin-based band Hope have teamed up with British underwater filmmaker and video artist Emma Critchley to create an immersive audiovisual world. Its musical basis is Hope’s second album »Navel«, on which the band speaks in a radically minimalist and consistently clear manner not only about the painful process of recognising and overcoming an addiction, but also about healing, self-determination, comfort, and accepting life in all its pain and beauty. For the Commissioned Work, Hope and Emma Critchley visit an underwater cave in the Atlantic, a place of solitude, of life on its own terms. They encounter endlessly vast patterns and colours as well as a force that is older and greater than humankind, creating a scenario that also allows for contemplation and celebrating life. The images (not solely anchored in the memories of Critchley and Hope, also appearing on stage for the audience to see) show not only the power and beauty of the underwater world, but also the vulnerability and fragility of this unique biotope – and the need to respect and protect it. This special collaboration by Emma Critchley and Hope takes the artists themselves into new worlds and hopefully also lets Pop-Kultur audiences take a journey into their own inner world.