Interview

What does art do at the Natural History Museum?

An interview with Anna-Sophie Springer and Dr. Etienne Turpin, guest curators of the exhibition Vanishing Legacies: The World as Forest

Nature and art are directly intertwined for Anna-Sophie Springer and Etienne Turpin. With the exhibition Vanishing Legacies: The World as Forest, the curators question traditional images and ways of imagining nature in the face of species extinction, deforestation, and climate change. The interview provides an insight into the methods and background of the project, which opened at the Museum of Nature Hamburg - Zoology on November 9, 2017, and will be on view until the end of March 2018.

How would you describe the tension between art and nature for the exhibition?

There is not really a direct tension between art on the one hand and nature on the other. Rather, we are interested in the question of how (the) nature is generated and maintained as an idea, an image - in other words, nature and culture are always already interwoven. What do we think of when we imagine (the) "nature" and why is this so? Where do these ideas actually come from, and are there other ideas we should be concerned with? These are sort of the big questions that are on our minds as curators of Vanishing Legacies: The World as Forest, and which are also reflected in the artistic works that can be experienced in the exhibition.

Why do you want to show the exhibition in natural history museums?

The natural history museum is still a central place where people learn about nature. It gives many of us an idea of nature and an awareness of the environment, other living things, ecology, and so on, from a very young age. That's why it's important to meet people and pick them up where they are already used to asking questions about nature. But then, above all, to invite them to open up to other questions as well, or to take on other (and perhaps less familiar) perspectives. We believe that the natural history museum does indeed have the potential and the task of addressing current issues such as species extinction, deforestation and climate change - after all, these museums have long since ceased to be just about teaching the theory of evolution as they once were in the 19th century. But today, it must be said that evolution (or rather, the biodiversity of the earth that has evolved through evolution) itself is under threat, which in turn raises exciting - indeed, urgent - questions about the role of the natural history museum in the present. Against this background, then, it seems to us a good idea to try to meet people halfway in order to confront certain problems of our time - and also the origins of these problems - and precisely not to simply carry on as before. So what place would be more suitable for such a discussion than the Natural History Museum!

What criteria did you use to select the artists?

We invited artists whose work addresses urgent contemporary issues - especially in the context of the tropical regions that Alfred Russel Wallace once traveled to. For many of these artists, the forest (or rainforest) is central to their artistic research and exploratory practice. What meanings and mythologies are associated with it? How was and is it classified, represented, changed? To what extent does the forest, with its thousands upon thousands of living beings, symbioses and exchange processes, stand for life on earth in a biological-ecological sense, but also embody "worlds" from an anthropocentric-philosophical or animistic point of view? To what extent can the two actually not be separated from each other at all? And how does this relate to everything that the dioramas of the Museum of Natural History want to convey to us?

We were particularly interested in inviting a wide spectrum of positions to the project, thereby opening up a field of tension that allows critical questions and unusual perspectives. Perhaps something confuses first and foremost. Something else in the constellation, however, may then open up approaches and connections. Basically, we are interested in giving space to other images and ways of imagining nature and environments - precisely where otherwise quite traditional (or let's say, Western-influenced) images of nature have been dominant for a long time: Certainly, the depictions of tropical habitats in the habitat dioramas of natural history museums are fascinating. But when you think about it, these depictions hardly match what the tropics really look like today! So we wanted to work with artists for whom this discrepancy, this rupture between representation in the museum and the challenges on the ground also plays an important role, and who are committed to reflecting on and constructively discussing this tension in their works. What will certainly stand out here is how much the works presented are about people - and "the people." In the natural history museum, one is actually accustomed to always viewing "untouched" nature. Vanishing legacies: The World as Forest, on the other hand, complicates the concept of the natural in many ways.

In concrete terms, this means that we are showing artistic works - including eight works created especially for the exhibition - that deal with the mediatization of tropical nature: De-naturalizing images of nature, if you will. In order to narrow this down somewhat, we have invited artists whose installations, photographs, films or sculptures deal with changes in the natural habitats once explored by Wallace or shed light on problems relevant today in Amazonia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Hamburg as an important city in the European network of colonial trade is also reflected here and there, as well as the fundamental question of the natural history museum's colonial heritage.

What role do Wallace's expedition history and the LIB's scientific collections play?

In fact, the project does not only show artworks in the Natural History Museum. In order to give an insight into the expedition and collection history of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), we worked with various curators from the Museum of Nature Hamburg - Zoology and together selected specimens from the scientific collections - bird skins, insect boxes, reptiles, fish from the wet collection, and mammal skins - that make references to the descriptions of nature from Wallace's writings. We have also made contact with other collections at the University of Hamburg and are very pleased to be able to show specimens from the useful plant collection of the Loki Schmidt House and the Herbarium Hamburgense. As scientific objects, many of the things we will show are normally not easily accessible to the public. We have had some particularly valuable objects scanned with the latest technology in a cooperation with the Hamburg CT scanning company XYLON in order to show high-resolution digitalizations that reflect the latest state of scientific image production. In this respect, the exhibition is made up of a whole range of different elements and provides many different points of reference.

What led you to the concept of the exhibition and its contents?

First of all, we were interested in the fact that Alfred Russel Wallace traveled through both Amazonia and Indonesia a good 150 years ago: It wasn't really that long ago - if you read his books today, you can follow everything just fine, even if some of his views have noticeably colonial traits, making certain paragraphs difficult to digest. Basically, however, one has the feeling of talking to an acquaintance, of listening to a great-grandfather. However, as soon as you realize the speed and the extent of the land (economic) changes in these areas, you want to think that Wallace's impressions were already thousands of years ago!

Today's world is completely different than it was in Wallace's time. It's so important to realize that the rainforests Wallace explored and described so vividly back then have now been massively reduced, fragmented, destroyed - and it's important then to understand why this produces a whole host of real problems. Therefore, the question arose for us: After Wallace (parallel to Charles Darwin) recognized the principle of evolution by natural selection by studying the biodiversity of these regions - would this still be possible if he traveled these areas today? Has modern man brought about the disappearance of the legacy of evolution? And if so, how does this change the role of natural history collections in the 21st century?

To give an example: Prof. Dr. Matthias Glaubrecht also writes in his Wallace biography about the extensive destruction of tropical habitats in Indonesia today. And he makes it clear that we here in Europe also have a lot to do with it. But doesn't this also 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 reflect the historical view for which such institutions stand? Yes, what should be shown in the exhibitions of such institutions at all? And with what methods, strategies does one do this against the background of the Sixth Mass Extinction?

Who do you want to address with the exhibition?

The exhibition is aimed at anyone interested in images of nature and their transformation over time. It certainly also offers material and sensory impressions for people who want to know whether and how contemporary artistic practice opens up a space for new questions in times of anthropogenic climate change and the extinction of many species everywhere on the planet. Of course, this does not mean that the exhibition provides answers to all these questions or even wants to provide them, but it is at least an invitation to think together about such issues and also to put other considerations into the room. For surely there is no one - no one living on Earth today - whom these radical planetary changes will not affect. So, from this point of view, it is really high time that we develop new sensitivities, understandings and capabilities and, in connection with this, formulate new terms, concepts and vocabularies that help to describe and understand these changes.

However, such a project can only be realized together and the exhibition is an invitation to a broad public. Admission is free and all are welcome!