Swarming Fever 2021
I'm delighted to be showing work in NatureMax at GIANT Gallery, Bournemouth.
15th Nov 2021 until 13th Feb 2022
Curated by Paul Carey-Kent
Saelia Aparicio | Rebecca Byrne
Theo Ellison | Tessa Farmer | Matt Hale | Andy Harper | Sandra Kantanen | Julie Maurin | Alan Rankle
Kelly Richardson | Toby Tatum | Esther Teichmann
How should we relate to nature? As recently as fifty years ago the anthropocentric way of looking purely through the lens of human outcomes was the mainstream assumption, at least in western traditions. Yet the growing consensus around the effect of a history of exploiting and abusing nature has altered how we see the relationship. Timothy Morton has suggested how ‘putting something called Nature on a pedestal and admiring it from
afar does for the environment what patriarchy does for the figure of Woman’. Rather, we should see humans as just one species among many in the ecosystem, and hold that the natural environment is intrinsically valuable independent of what benefit accrues to people.
Art is good at evoking, amplifying, and provoking in response to such shifts in perception.
Bournemouth’s former Debenhams – a doomed cathedral of sorts to the society of consumption which lies behind the Anthropocene - is an appropriate place to reflect on how we relate to nature. And there’s plenty of potential to read concerns about the future of nature into the work of the twelve artists gathered here.
- Paul Carey-Kent