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Algae, mangroves, corn and fish occupy the various traces of life on Earth in a new traveling art exhibition in the capital. Non-human life is at the center of French philosopher Bruno Latour’s research. Bruno Latour is one of two influential figures who inspired the show, which asks humans to think about their relationship to the world they live in.
One of the two main central themes of the exhibition Critical Zone: In Search of Common Ground, which opened on February 2 at the Goethe-Institut/Max Muller Bhavan in Delhi, is non-human life. It is about how it exists.
The second theme is the symbiosis between living and non-living things on Earth, and how important the relationship between living and non-living things is to the survival of the Earth. The exhibition utilizes maps, videos, and installations to highlight both themes. For example, how microscopic entities like algae impact the world on a global scale by producing 30% of oxygen or certain fishing techniques in India.
Latour and fellow Austrian artist Peter Weibel, who organized the exhibition, are no longer with us. The philosophy of Latour, who died in 2022, of thinking of the world as a common ground for humans and non-humans, echoes the idea of the first exhibition held at Germany’s ZKM Arts and Media Center four years ago. A cultural facility located in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe. The exhibition is based on the ideas of ZKM’s late scientific and artistic directors Latour and Weibel, and is dedicated to “Critical Zones: Global Politics” to raise red flags about the ecological and environmental catastrophe facing the planet and its collectives. Observatory” opened at ZKM in 2020. you need to face it.
Although the exhibition closed two years later, ZKM and the Goethe Institute continued to expand the exhibition in South Asia, one of the most populous and polluted places on earth and therefore at the highest risk of disasters such as the climate crisis. We decided to work together to expand the association. Adapting to South Asia as a Key Region: In Search of Common Ground The show opened in Mumbai in 2022 and then traveled to Pune, Kolkata and Colombo in Sri Lanka. “By bringing together artists, cultural activists and scientists, this exhibition raises questions of ecological, economic and social sustainability,” said Goethe Institute for South Asian Culture says program director Katharina Gehrig.
The “critical zone” in the exhibition’s title refers to the surface of the earth, only a few kilometers thick, that has been formed by various life forms altering the original geology over thousands of years. The exhibition explores multiple astronomical observatories set up by scientists, one of which is located at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. It highlights the fact that there is no escape. The program reiterates Latour’s theory of a “new climate regime” that combines ecological crisis with political and cultural history and ethics.
Delhi-based artist Sonia Mehra Chawla is one of several artists from around the world taking part in the show, who explores mangroves, diverse ecosystems, and the water and land that determine life. We have seen that unsustainable fishing, farming and forestry practices are behind the breakdown of barriers between countries. About its microbial community. ‘The Universe of Details’ (2019) and ‘BioShield’ (2022) from Chawla’s ongoing series ‘Critical Membranes’ are the works of the Muthupet mangrove forest in Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu, which has been studied for over two centuries. It shows how it was partially restored by previous traditional fishing methods. by her MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai.
Latour’s theory of the “new climate regime” is reflected in artists such as Lisbon-based artist Uriel Aureau, who assembles a series of giant wooden boxes to explore colonial trajectories. It traces the path in which people transported plants from one continent to another for large-scale cultivation, a process that continues today. “Raíz Aérea (Aerial Root)” is a video installation by Edith Morales, a Mexican artist who focuses on agricultural production in his work “Soil Affinityities,” which seeks to patent various types of corn grown by indigenous communities in his country. It recasts biopiracy and colonialism in the story of Western scientists who believe that Through co-cultivation, it fertilizes itself by developing aerial roots that take in nitrogen from the air and produce a gel inhabited by bacteria.
The need to reinvent the symbiotic relationship between humans and non-humans for the survival of the planet is best described in the 1979 book Gaia: A New View of Life on Earth by British chemical engineer James Lovelock. explained. Lovelock’s concept, adopted from the Greek goddess Gaia, the ancestral mother of all life in the universe, was developed in collaboration with American evolutionary biologist Lynne Margulis, and the exhibition explores how life forms It has been reconstructed as art that explains how it has created living conditions for other life forms. Forms and humans must learn how to extend or improve rather than destroy these living conditions.
“Depending on its location in New Delhi, the exhibition is built in layers. We start with the outer, thin surface to observe, readjust our senses, and become sensitive. Passing within the critical zone, we encounter the multiple scales, rhythms, spatialities and temporalities constituted by human and non-human assemblages, which make us aware of their common threads and other possibilities for living together. ” says one of them, Bettina Korintenberg. Latour and Weibel with her four curators of the original her ZKM exhibition. “The backdrop, landscape and vibrant cultural scene of India’s capital enrich the exhibition with new questions, creative responses and deep conversations about how we find common ground with all forms of life.” , says Mira Hiltz, co-curator of the current exhibition.
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