Video Installation Fire Walks With Me

“Fire Walks With Me” (2018-2024) by Christin Berg was presented as an immersive nine-channel video installation at the Kunsthalle Rostock for the Video Art Prize. Shot on 16mm film and digital video, the artwork weaves together barren landscapes and intimate family dialogues across Iceland, Germany, France, and Portugal. The installation utilizes a spatial soundscape to explore deeply personal themes of freedom, memory, and the cycle of life.

Script Excerpt (English translation):

Interior, evening, father and child at the table. A tear beneath each of the child’s eyes, glimmering. The father takes a match from the box, lights it, and extinguishes it in his mouth.
Child: “I am a bird. I am a butterfly. I am a tree. I am free.”
Father: “There is an end and a beginning, a time to act and a time to sleep. Aren’t you hungry?”
Child: “I went climbing today. It was sunny and mild. The birds called me into the distance.”
Father: “What is the most important thing in life?”
Child: “Me, right?”
Father: “What are you hungry for? You are young. You see, we are drifting—a bird without a tree, a butterfly without wind beneath its wings.”
The fire walks with me. by Christin Berg