Ferocious Love

In the face of adversity, what might bring us together? The need for water, competition, the desire for human touch, communal singing or mutual care?

Ferocious Love 2020 is a new audio-visual installation, commissioned by the TATE in partnership with Birmingham City University, reflecting on young people’s perspectives on an uncertain future, in the face of environmental adversity. Mikhail Karikis created this work in collaboration with young people from Birmingham City University and the activist choral group of the Liverpool Socialist Singers.

Karikis and his collaborators speculate on a future where the climate has changed and there are no more seasons. Noises of turbulent, extreme weather resonate around the gallery in a new choral composition created with the singers. This surrounds a video installation featuring an imagined community of young people seeking refuge in the depths of the earth and a nature reserve, reflecting on why they are together.

Inspired by students’ environmental activism, and referencing the feminist music thinker and performer Pauline Oliveros and the writings of Naomi Klein, Karikis’s Ferocious Love focuses on the need for community and togetherness. It echoes the yearning for hope and the emotional challenges faced by the younger generation’s awareness of the scope of dramatic change.

The premier of this work is hosted by TATE Liverpool’s annual We Have Your Art Gallery project.