Serafima Bresler: My Trees
Germany, 2024
Courtesy of the Artist
My Trees is a video installation by Serafima Bresler, composed of a network of circular micro-displays resembling round electronic watch faces. These small screens form tree branches and serve as vessels for looping video content—emphasising the cyclical nature of time, memory, and observation.
The project centers on the themes of invisibility, recurrence, and the disappearance of archival material. It juxtaposes two contrasting video archives: personal, intimate footage of daily life and public documentation of disasters. Through this contrast, My Trees investigates how catastrophes become normalised and how memory—both individual and collective—fades or becomes distorted over time.
The network of smart watch screens carries associations of family trees and passing on trauma over generations as well as the common practice of silent witnessing of a disaster from a safe distance, looking through a peep-hole-like screen.
Serafima Bresler is an artist and researcher based in Hamburg. Her work engages with the study of catastrophes and their interconnectedness with domestic spaces. She holds a BA in Illustration from the British Higher School of Art & Design (BHSAD), Moscow, and graduated in Time-based Media at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (HFBK). In 2024, she received the DAAD Prize and in 2023 she was awarded the Achievement Grant Award for International Students from the Hamburg Ministry of Sciences. Her work has been exhibited at venues such as Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven, DE (2024); De Balie, Amsterdam, NL (2024); and Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin, DE (2024) Bresler co-founded Artworkshop HH, a project organising free art workshops for refugees in Hamburg.
