December 3 – December 17, 2015
Monday, December 7, 2015 at 6:30 – 8:00 pm: Panel discussion with David Brooks, Una Chaudhuri, and Harrison Atelier. Free and open to the public. Reception to follow.
Curator: Patrick Jaojoco
Artists: Suzanne Anker, Dear Climate, Sophia Hewson, Terence Koh, Celeste Neuhaus, Dana Sherwood, and Alicia Toldi
humanimalands is an exhibition that explores the newly permeable ontologies of humans, animals, and landscape. Curated by Patrick Jaojoco, a curatorial fellow in the MA Curatorial Practice program at CP Projects Space, humanimalands features the work of six artists, one collective, and a collection of rocks, all of which are brought together in an effort to better grasp the status of being in the Anthropocene.
The exhibition’s objects, images, and recordings form a direct response to the dominant notion of “nature” generally unchanged since 19th-century Romanticism: pristine, sublime, and wholly separated from human culture. This blinds us from the true nature of nature, and enables us to continue our existence under the problematic dichotomy of either destroyers or stewards. In a geological era in which human forces have fundamentally altered Earth’s natural processes, our relationship with nature is much more profoundly intimate.
From oceans to urban sprawls to nature preserves, humans are integrated in every “natural” landscape in one way or another; even the most remote areas in the world are affected by anthropogenic changes in the atmosphere. In related developments, non-human life on every level, from ecosystems to species to individuals, often cease to exist—but sometimes thrive—on human terms. Human life, meanwhile, is increasingly confronted with the rise of droughts, extreme weather events, and surging sea levels. Yet despite their anthropogenic influence and apocalyptic overtones, they are still fundamentally natural processes.
This exhibition attempts to dissolve perceived distinctions between humanity and its surroundings and in its place establish a radical fluidity of human, animal, and landscape ontologies: a new “nature.”When considering nature’s expanded field—what might be called humanimalands—we must rely on the imagination. This exhibition therefore presents works in various mediums that are neither prescriptive nor romantic. Rather, they are provocative, relying on interaction and discourse to invoke conceptions of our current world that may be sad, bizarre or humorous.
These varied views necessitate discussion and a panel discussion that is free and open to the public will take place on December 7 to further expand on the existential question: how should we live in the Anthropocene?
http://www.sva.edu/events/events-exhibitions/humanimalands
