Myth (rain) forest between art and nature research
Vanishing legacies: The World as Forest
November 10, 2017 - March 29, 2018
The forest is a myth. Sung about and gilded by artists of all times and regions. It is a place of longing, a living environment and a resource. For European naturalists of the 19th century, it was also a place of knowledge. But what does the (rain)forest look like today? How have humans changed this ideal habitat of so many animals and plants to suit their needs, and how have European colonialism and industrialization shattered the finely balanced interplay of species - especially in tropical regions? And the other way around, what knowledge is there today about how man cannot actually be imagined without these fertile assemblages, because indigenous cultivation practices are rooted in many primeval forests, which only come to light through large-scale deforestation? Is the separation of nature and culture still tenable from a scientific perspective in the Anthropocene?
With the special exhibition Vanishing Legacies: The World as Forest, LIB brings the current problem and research field of species extinction, deforestation, and climate change to the Museum der Natur Hamburg - Zoologie with contemporary artworks. From November 10, 2017 to March 29, 2018, audiovisual installations, photographs, films, and sculptures by international artists will transform the exhibition hall into an (endangered) forest habitat. In collaboration with curators from the scientific collections of the LIB, the Herbarium Hamburgense, and the Nutzpflanzenmuseum, exhibition curators Anna-Sophie Springer and Dr. Etienne Turpin present a variety of botanical and zoological objects as references to the transformations of tropical ecosystems since their exploration by European naturalists a good century and a half ago. Vanishing Legacies thus shows incomparable biodiversity at the crossroads of science and monoculture.
The occasion of the exhibition is the 160th anniversary of the publication of the Darwin-Wallace papers, one of the central treatises of biology as a scientific discipline. The British naturalist and natural history collector Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) undertook expeditions to South America and Southeast Asia in the 19th century. His extensive collection is considered the basis of his pioneering selection theory. "Wallace was fortunate to explore two of the most biodiverse habitats on Earth, the Amazon region and the Indo-Malay Islands," says Wallace biographer Prof. Dr. Matthias Glaubrecht. "Today, these areas are dramatically losing their biodiversity due to deforestation. We want to use artistic means to draw attention to these disappearing legacies."
Almost all of the artistic positions were created especially for the special exhibition, while others have already received worldwide recognition in renowned museums, galleries and biennials. All 13 works address current environmental changes in Indonesia and the Amazon. Mirroring the expeditions of the naturalist and evolutionary researcher Alfred R. Wallace, they open up a field of tension between futuristic images of nature and historical natural phenomena, between reality and fiction, beauty and horror. With their exhibition concept and against the background of current historiography, curators Springer and Turpin raise a number of questions and invite their audience on an exciting journey: "... In his Wallace biography, Prof. Dr. Glaubrecht also writes about the extensive destruction of tropical habitats in today's Indonesia. And he makes it clear that we here in Europe have a lot to do with it. But doesn't this present a new challenge for the Museum of Natural History? In other words, to what extent do current social, economic and ecological realities change the mission of this institution? Or rather, how does this mission change as soon as one begins to also reflect the historical view for which such institutions stand?"
Vanishing Legacies: The World as Forest is a project by Anna-Sophie Springer and Dr. Etienne Turpin. The exhibition is realized by LIB 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 Humboldt University Berlin and the Central Repository of Natural Science Collections of 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.
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