terror element (2024)

Terror Element examines the role of forensic science in shaping state narratives through the lens of an investigator revisiting the 1999 apartment bombings in Russia. Engelhardt and Cinkevich reflect on how evidence and interpretation blur, questioning the stability of truth when mediated by forensic technologies. The film highlights how state power relies on the authority of science to legitimise narratives, even as those narratives remain fragile and contested. By staging the investigative process as a cinematic event, Terror Element exposes the political stakes of forensics, where facts can be manipulated or denied. The work invites viewers to consider how stories of violence and terror are written and rewritten through the unstable interplay of material traces and state agendas.

Anna Engelhardt, Mike Cinkevich 'Terror Element', 2025. Installation: single-channel video (25m), television, camera, speakers, briefcase, explosive detection spray, laboratory tables. Dimensions variable.

LOCATION: Direkcija rudnika (former administration building of the Raša Mine)