In a global scenery of excess, instability, accumulation, (ir) radiation and unprecedented disturbance, the notions of interconnectedness and coexistence, the urge for sensitivity and awareness activation, the challenges of sustainability and resilience are recurring themes throughout contemporary art, crossing environmental activism, politics and pedagogy.
The philosophical and spiritual conception of the wholeness of Nature that involves Human beings as part of it, among all living forms – as Alexander von Humboldt had put, describing Earth as an inextricable and vulnerable web– tends to address the components and violent practices emerging from the classical Western ideology of dichotomy and separation, dominance and subordination.
The ecological concerns that arose from the sixties to our present days – following what is referred to as the ‘great acceleration’ of the Anthropocene era – express themselves in several intellectual, social and artistic performative movements. Most of these believe in the benevolent transformational power of getting back in touch with the land, of renewing a physical relationship with the manifest natural surroundings of our existence, the outdoor vast open spaces. And they believe in doing so, shifting the perception and traditional modes of thinking by reestablishing an intimate interaction with the landscape, its cycles, its rhythms, its light modulations as sites for introspectiveness and self-knowledge, for retrieval of historical indices and long-lost memory, as a potential meteorological compass for subjectivities and inscriptions as well as framing(s).
Beyond the feelings of anger, bitterness, melancholy, despair and powerlessness flowing from the increasingly dramatic information, findings and predictions, there are several aesthetic and artistic attempts to recreate a certain sacredness and an awe atmosphere, to cultivate a sense of wonder as well as the capacity to deeply connect to the whole living force through imagination, emotion and empathy. This peculiar state of mind, as intentionally infused by «troublemakers» such as Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer in their monumental works («The Earth Projects», «Spiral Jetty», «Double Negative», «Circular Surface», «Munich Depression»…), can only be experienced in a relation of mutual exchange with the land, rather than in a senseless destructive exploitation for profit. «Do those sites scarred by mining or poisoned by chemicals now seem less like the entropic liabilities of ravenous and short-sighted industry and more like long-awaited aesthetic possibilities?».
Calling for reflection and concrete action, this issue of Wrong Wrong will present proposals that consider the implications of the use and wear of the Earth and the modes of occupation/mediation of art that contribute to «mapping us back into the world».
Susana Mouzinho & Katherine Sirois