Pfui – Pish, Pshaw / Prr, Saskia Olde Wolbers, 2017 two channel video HD 20 min, PCAI

Pfui – Pish, Pshaw / Prr, deals with the urgent business of toxic waste management and gives voice to Mr Theodosis Alifrangis, the longest-serving worker of a Greek oil spill response company.

The fictional script, loosely based on Alifrangis’ anekdotes, is from an oil spill responder’s point of view and reveals his superstitious reason for filming; "Xematiasma", the Greek oil and water divination, where his camera wards off the evil eye whilst tending to major emergencies on a daily basis.

He expands into further musings around matter and spirit, ancient rituals for cleansing the sea, his love for shipwrecks, recollections of heroic acts against the mundane everyday reality of cleaning heavy oils from the sea’s surface, until narrative time seemingly starts reversing, playing with ideas of toxic waste and permanence.

The two screen work features an eclectic sample of Alifrangis’ prolific VHS archive, unofficially filmed over 40 years on his camcorder, alongside imagery created in Olde Wolbers’ studio, where model sets of cruise ship interiors, ferromagnetic mussels and molecular structures are covered in iridescently coloured dripping oils and filmed in tanks.

It also features sonar imaging attempts around the unsalvageable Sea Diamond, a cruise ship in Santorini that has commanded Alifrangis’ daily care for the last 10 years, filmed by Olde Wolbers in collaboration with Alifrangis

Sonar is a technology used in medicine and marine archaeology and is here innovatively used in an art context to visualise pollution.

The title derives from a DH Lawrence letter in which the author abandoned language to express an onomatopoeic anger.

The work was commissioned by Polyeco’s Contemporary Art Initiative (PCAI) which raises environmental awareness through an art program curated by Nadia Agyropoulou.

It was co-commissioned by Invisible Dust who work with leading artists and scientists, to produce works of contemporary art exploring climate change and the environment.