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Fictional Nature
Place: Bärenzwinger, Berlin
Date: -
Artists: Maximilian Arnold & Ørjan Einarsønn Døsen, Isabella Fürnkäs, Fabian Knecht, Keto Logua
Curated by: Evelyn Gregel & Jan Tappe
Works: Too Easy (To Die), Wounded
What is nature? How is it perceived and understood? Which actions result from a particular perspective on nature, and how could they differ? While the philosophy of idealism postulated »wild« nature as the binary opposite of (human) culture, Alexander von Humboldt developed a holistic understanding of nature during his research travels in the 19th century. He conceived of the earth as a complex organism whose countless elements are all interlinked – and conceived of humans as part of these elements. At that time, European societies had long since begun harnessing their environment through massive interventions: an ongoing process that has put the planet’s ecological balance in a state of permanent crisis and at the same time opened up various future narratives, oscillating between dystopia and visions of radical change.
As part of the program »Fictional Odyssey« at Bärenzwinger, the exhibition »Fictional Nature« deals with human constructions of nature. Avoiding an ideologically charged approach, as well as an attempt to depict the entirety of the subject area, the exhibition explores narratives in the nomadic network of historical and contemporary environments and shows four artistic positions that examine social, media, technical and scientific overlaps.
In her work, Isabella Fürnkäs combines digital and archaic media and negotiates topics such as isolation, corporeality and communication structures. Her piece »Too Easy« demonstrates this approach: At the beginning of the video we see the movements of an ant street and those of a rave. Two different forms of group organization. The prevailing efficiency within the ant colony and the group structure of the dancing crowd are structurally similar. One can also observe the uniform step of a young woman and waves that hit a beach, or the constellation of shells and sparkling eye make-up. The formal similarities are not contradictory. The natural, the synthetic and the human seem to be able to ecstatically co-exist side by side.
In her series »Wounded« – from which she also shows a work at Bärenzwinger – Fürnkäs uses goatskin as a medium, which is connected with small objects or written onto. The physical presence of the skin, which once served as a form of parchment, seems prehistoric and brutal in its new function, as well as vulnerable and with a perceptible appreciation of the material.
- Text by Jan Tappe