Opening: Saturday August 19th 7pm
You Survived When Nothing Grew reflects the possibility of the continuity of existence in an order where vital needs are unmet. The exhibition invites us to examine what we can learn from the remnants of those who are no longer here and those who continue to exist by changing form.
Özgür Demirci's works entitled The Abandoned and Since the Beginning, produced within the scope of the Anthology of Promises project, wander between broken promises and forgotten myths. The work The Abandoned portrays plants unable to access sufficient water to sustain their existence, struggling to cling to the soil. In his work entitled Since the Beginning, Demirci seeks the answer by exploring past stories feeding on the aspects of myths and fabricated stories that mould human behaviour.
Emilija Škarnulytė pursues the remnants of the Cold War hidden in the waters of the Arctic in her work entitled "Sirenomelia", in which she hypothesizes possible post- human mythologies. Transforming her body into the mythological character Siren, the artist navigates the infinity pools of the NATO military base in Norway, trying to see the wounds inflicted by humans at the bottom of the ocean.
In Songs from the Compost: Mutating Bodies, Imploding Stars Eglė Budvytytė proposes symbiosis, mutation, and hybridity for the continuity of the life cycle within the present world order. This video, shot in Curonian pine forests and dunes, delves into non-human forms of consciousness through the law of interdependence.
Florencia Levy's video work Fossil Place, curated by Florencia Incarbone as part of the collaboration with BIENALSUR, takes us into a disturbing choral narrative in which nature, urbanism, economy and extractivism intertwine in a complex dystopian reality. Several voices allow us to navigate through the changes that different Chinese cities have undergone in the last forty years due to their exponential growth linked to the rise of technology and the exploitation of the land.
The exhibition You Survived When Nothing Grew attempts to support the cosmogony myth by delving into the origins of diverse forms of existence.
Image: Florencia Levy, Fossil place
