Aline Baiana, Minia Biabiany, Kadija de Paula & Chico Togni in collaboration with FELL, Patricia Esquivias, Andreas Kempe, Antje Majewski, Silvia Noronha, Uriel Orlow, Lois Weinberger
The exhibition What the eyes cannot see, the heart cannot feel is dedicated to the coexistence of humans with their natural environment. Around the world, landscapes and ecosystems have been and are still being changed by human interventions, while languages and cultural techniques have evolved in direct response to landscapes, plants and soils.
Recognizing the necessities of living in coexistence will decide whether survival on our planet will succeed. What the eyes cannot see, the heart cannot feel features contemporary artworks that evoke a variety of narratives on coexistence and global knowledge.
With cautious, archaeological, partially research-oriented and partially experimental approaches and near-natural setups, and based on anecdotes, conversations and archive material, the artworks exemplarily address entangled stories at various locations across the globe.
Modern forestry and historical knowledge of the bark beetle come into view, as does the story of a huge cactus from northern Mexico that was transplanted to Seville in 1992. As silent witnesses, trees tell the history of apartheid in South Africa, and film footage from the history of the environmental movement hint at the magnitude of the task that still awaits us, namely, to (re)learn languages and forms of knowledge that have fallen into oblivion or been systematically marginalized.
Based on a speculative view from the future to the times we are living in today, the issue is also if and how humans can succeed in becoming part of a circulatory system again—or what archaeology will find when its searches for traces of our lives?
Curated by: Christiane Mennicke-Schwarz, Vincent Schier
Still Crazy – 30 Years Kunsthaus Dresden
In this year of 2021, the Kunsthaus features long-term projects in the garden, temporary interventions in urban space and selected exhibitions to celebrate contemporary art’s wonderful ability to change places, people and their relationship to each other—and with this, it’s 30th anniversary as well.
Along with the exhibition, Listening to the Stones also begins, a special anniversary project with interventions in the Kunsthaus, in urban space as well as in the garden and in digital and analog art formats. In cooperation with the curator Miya Yoshida, funded by the Japan Foundation.
In parallel to “What the eyes cannot see, the heart cannot feel,” a new show opens at the Technischen Sammlungen Dresden that deals with similar issues from a scientific point of view: “Wolke 8. Das Klima und Wir” is an interactive exhibition in the Ernemannturm on climate research, climate change and what we need to do to counter it.