Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen Discuss Grief, Global Supply Chains, and Camel Semen in ArtReview Interview

London-based artists Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen recently exhibited their video work 'Daughter of Dog' (2024) at Mostyn in Wales. The exhibition featured enigmatic short videos, sculptures of snakelike forms with Atlas moth eggs, and carnivorous pitcher plants. Their practice explores global economic structures through juxtapositions of unrelated elements like mustard flowers, robot dogs, and dancers. Cohen revealed that 'Daughter of Dog' emerged from personal grief and childhood memories of mustard gas during the Gulf War in Jerusalem, where she grew up. The artists' 2017 film 'Trapped in the Dream of the Other' was shot in a coltan mine in Congo, where 80% of the world's coltan originates, and featured fireworks made in Liuyang, China, shipped back to the mine. Their 2013 work '75 Watt' involved designing useless technology to create factory performances. Current projects include research with choreographers and plans to film camel semen-harvesting technology in Dubai. The artists frequently collaborate with genetic scientists, psychologists, and powder-coating manufacturers. Their 2022 monograph 'Not What I Meant But Anyway' references anthropologist Rebecca Cassidy's writing about Thoroughbred horses as expressions of empire. Cohen describes their exhibitions as creating 'apophenia' - the sense that disconnected things are somehow related.