Announcement of the artists
LIB is showing eight newly commissioned works by renowned contemporary artists such as Maria Thereza Alves, Bik Van der Pol, Armin Linke and Paulo Tavares alongside five additional works by Ursula Biemann, Mark Dion and others.
160 years ago, Alfred Russel Wallace deciphered the principle of evolution during research trips in South America and Southeast Asia. From Nov. 10, 2017, to March 29, 2018, the exhibition Vanishing Legacies: The World as Forest explores the destruction of these tropical habitats in the Anthropocene.
The concept of the exhibition is unique. As a hybrid of historical themed exhibition and space-filling art event, the project transforms the Museum der Natur Hamburg - Zoologie in a temporary intervention. The focus is on positions by 17 contemporary artists - including eight works created especially for the project - and a special selection of zoological and botanical exhibits, some of which are also integrated into the artistic works. For example, through visits facilitated by the Goethe-Institut Singapore, artist Robert Zhao Renhui further developed his work on site with objects from LIB's entomological collection. The artist duo Bik Van der Pol found inspiration for a deeper exploration of the phenomenon of the image of nature as replica in a tension between reality and fiction through a visit to Mammalogy.
Other artistic works were created through travels in Brazil and Indonesia. In Borneo, Java and Sumatra, photographer and filmmaker Armin Linke, together with his colleague Giulia Bruno and curators Anna-Sophie Springer and Dr. Etienne Turpin, conducted numerous interviews with local residents, plantation workers, small farmers, environmentalists, government officials and scientists. The result is a cinematic document that reflects the speed at which Indonesia is currently transforming itself into a palm oil nation amidst giant peat fires. In her museum installation, Maria Thereza Alves gives the floor to the 33 indigenous clan chiefs she accompanied for a month at a workshop on indigenous agroforestry and resource conservation. Revital Cohen & Tuur van Balen turn their gaze inward, x-raying preserved animals with ice-cold X-ray vision, while Julian Oliver & Crystelle Vũ's automated multimedia installation Extinction Gong translates the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species into an eerie beat rhythm.
The artistic positions and curatorial assemblages presented in the exhibition Vanishing Legacies: The World as Forest presented artistic positions and curatorial assemblages contradict a romantic image of untouched nature and instead ask about the legacies that remain, in the face of the ongoing destruction of highly complex ecosystems.
Vanishing Legacies: The World as Forest presents artistic works by Maria Thereza Alves, Ursula Biemann, Bik Van der Pol, Shannon Lee Castleman, Revital Cohen & Tuur van Balen, Mark Dion, Radjawali Irendra / Akademi Drone Indonesia, Armin Linke with Giulia Bruno and Giuseppe Ielasi, Barbara Marcel, Julian Oliver & Crystelle Vũ, Robert Zhao Renhui / The Institute of Critical Zoologists, SHIMURAbros and autonoma / Paulo Tavares.
Vanishing legacies: The World as Forest is a project by Anna-Sophie Springer and Dr. Etienne Turpin. The exhibition is realized by the Centrum für Naturkunde and can be seen here from November 10, 2017 to March 29, 2018. Further stops of Disappearing Legacies in 2018 are the project partners, the Animal Anatomical Theater of the Humboldt University Berlin and the Central Repository of Natural History Collections of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Halle/Saale. The exhibition cycle is a cooperation with the Ernst Schering Foundation and the Goethe-Institut Singapore. The project is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.