Focusing on the recent undamming of the Klamath River in Northern California — part of the biggest dam removal and river restoration project in US history — Murderers Bar is the final instalment in Raven’s moving image series, The Drumfire. Using aerial and underwater imaging, the camera captures a landscape in flux, following the immense release of water as it carves its own path for the first time in over 100 years.

Murderers Bar begins with the laying out of dynamite inside a large-scale concrete dam. After its powerful detonation, the work traces the rush of the river 200 miles to the Pacific Ocean. The film then turns and heads back upstream, finding the river winding through the drained reservoir behind the dam, a stark landscape of sediment that will be transformed by life in years to come, the original surface drowned, now revealed as potential. The dam, the immense reservoir behind it, and the river now coursing through both are inexorably transformed through the duration of the work.

The dam, built in 1918, caused detrimental impact to local ecosystems, inhibiting the river’s natural flow and the migratory routes of its fish, most notably the Chinook and Coho salmon, sources of crucial, cultural, spiritual and nutritional importance to the indigenous peoples who have populated the Klamath region for thousands of years. The dam was dismantled following decades of activism, testimony, and lawsuits by local tribes including the Yurok, Karuk, Klamath, and Hoopa Tribes, and the Shasta Indian Nation.

The exhibition also features a new kinetic light sculpture, Hardpan, commissioned by the Barbican in collaboration with the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. Echoing Raven’s film work, the sculpture channels the monumental energy of industrial force – though this time, it’s the gallery that’s transformed, the viewers who feel its impact.

Rounds is open Tuesday-Sunday, 11am-7pm, and is free to visit. Find more visiting information here. You can watch a film about the making of Murderers Bar here.