ethan allison folk (1986, USA) is a Berlin-based artist, writer, and filmmaker whose work addresses inter-species intimacy, marine ecology, and maritime economy through a lens of speculative fantasy.

At Skaftfell, ethan is developing a ghost story / soap opera / family drama about aquaculture (fish farming). A polyphonic creature chorus emanates from the AquAdvantage™ salmon, the world’s first genetically modified meat product. Vampiric sea lice, semi-domesticated cleaner fish, and a cascading chain of symbiotic and parasitic relations are explored as one of many dysfunctional “families” which survive and thrive, lend and spend, squirming through toxic togetherness in the disturbance zones of extractive industry.

ethan draws on a background in engineering and experience working on boats – commercial fishing vessels in Alaska and the civil search and rescue fleet in the Central Mediterranean – as well as an engagement with the works of Alexis Shotwell, Sunaura Taylor, and Donna Haraway, as they imagine new pathways of inter-species kinship which emerge from ecological exploitation, animal commodification, and polluted entanglement, affirming that “there is no pre-toxic, pre-entangled body to recover, only movement forwards toward mutual custodianship” (Shotwell).