Augustenborg_Project: Sustainability

Exhibition artists:

Andreas Rasmussen
Annelie Berner
Antoaneta Tica
Funda Zeynep Ayguler
Helena Perminger
Kate Skjerning
Maria Castellanos & Alberto Valverde
Martina Hindberg
Mira Friedrich
PutPut
Rune Bering
Sophie Filtenborg
Ulrika Jansson

Sustainability is all things to all people. To some it is a buzzword, to others a creed and way of life. The artists in this exhibition give their own answers in varied ways, with varying degrees of urgency and through very diverse media. One thing on which there is consensus, however, is the desperate need for human society to investigate and re-examine its relationship to the planet we call home.

From the ground below where mycelium nourishes the plant world and where flora perish to be resurrected as newly born living organisms to the clouds above, our artists interrogate nature and humanity for answers. Butterflies no longer follow the natural cycle from caterpillar to chrysalis to exquisite winged fairies. Now, their ultimate developmental stage is digital image distribution. Nature and life itself follow a metamorphosis from the organic composting techniques of the past to digital frontiers begging the question if this is indeed the path which we must travel. Clouds dissipate not into precipitation but into digital data behemoths which forcefully surge through the atmosphere to cannibalise on their predecessors composed of condensation.

16th century manifestos on feminism and ecology make a home inside fungus where their lofty declarations find peace in the decay that ultimately keeps the natural cycle of life moving. Wooden boxes carrying unknown scents invite us to breathe in and remember nature and its now forbidden fragrance.

The listless bodies of dead bees are immortalised in bronze to become a stark (and more durable) reminder of humanity’s reckless cruelty and destruction. The trees take up arms and weave themselves around weapons ready for a reckoning with mankind. A 3D plant stands erect in the forest, lost and disorientated, as the pollinators are now nearly extinct, and it is closer to a monument than an organism giving life’s elixir.

Plants are nearly non-existent and, instead, single-use plastic impostors sit in vases and pots in an incongruous greenhouse waiting for admiration but exuding no oxygen, bearing no life. Cast aside lampshades find new meaning in posing as otherworldly creatures in nature. Haute couture gowns executed in single use plastic haunt us with their exquisite silhouettes of a dystopian parade of avarice.

And yet, in this apocalyptic rabbit hole there is hope. We see humans and plants responding to the beauty of music, their minds and souls dancing in synchronicity with the notes. Beauty is scientific, it is art, it is tangible and intangible, it is inquisitive and natural. When we say we wish to be sustainable, we really mean that we wish to hold on to what we have already. But it is too late to hold on. We cannot stand still, we must regenerate. Dance with the earth, do not war with it. Mercy, not greed.

Exhibition photo credit PutPut