Lisa Rave’s artistic practice investigates the afterlives of colonialism, environmental extraction, and cultural memory. Her work often combines video, photography, sound, and archival research to question inherited narratives and expose the entanglements between ecological destruction and imperial history.

Drawing from her own family history, Lisa began her residency by researching seven ethnographic objects from Samoa that were taken by her great-granduncle—an officer in the German Imperial Navy in the 1890s—and later donated to the MARKK Museum in Hamburg. These objects became the conceptual starting point for her ongoing video-based project, which connects Germany’s colonial past to the climate vulnerabilities facing Samoa today. Over the course of four months in Samoa, Lisa collaborated with researchers, artists, and environmental practitioners.

Through her engagement with SPREP, she explored climate adaptation strategies, traditional ecological knowledge, and the role of regional governance. She also reflected critically on the politics of representation, authorship, and extractivism in art-making itself—seeking ways to build more reciprocal and grounded collaborations.Her residency laid the foundation for a visual essay that interweaves archival material, personal narrative, and filmed encounters—raising questions about restitution, resilience, and how we relate to place, history, and each other in the context of a changing climate.