Art Pavilion in Zagreb and Out of Sight are temporary moving to the Ethnographic museum in Zagreb with the group exhibition SIX SAMPLES OF CATASTROPHE that examines the representational, aesthetic, and tactile qualities of materials as visible imprints of invisible or less visible human interventions into the life of matter and nature. They manifest in a range from political hegemonies to ecological disasters, and speak of extractivist policies and (neo)colonialism. Employing archival methods of collection, indexing and selection, the works emulate museum displays and correlate with the concept of the Ethnographic Museum where they are exhibited. By linking human customs, both past and present extractivist practices and daily life, they pave the way for an ethnology viewed through the lens of human exploitation of natural resources. The industries of paint, oil, electromagnetic research, stone extraction, and bauxite processing have long navigated the tension between notions of progress, wealth accumulation, exploitation, and dominance. The exhibition weaves together mythology, folklore, history, magic, and scientific viewpoints, drawing attention to the destructive imprint of the humanity’s relationship with non-human nature.
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In his work SAMMLUNG BAU UND SCHMUCKSTEIN ALTES ROM, Hannes Böck shows us 55 stone samples from a collection of ancient Roman building materials. Filmed on 16mm colour film, they appear to be fragments of an abstract composition. The 15-minute film superimposes three imperial representations: the colonial appropriation of natural resources in conquered territories by the Roman Empire, the legitimization of European imperialism by harking back to an idealised Greco-Roman past, and the institutionalisation/discursive construction of photography as an objectifying tool in the service of modern science.
CLOUD TO GROUND (#1), sculptural installation by Marjolijn Dijkman refers to fulgurites, a phenomenon commonly referred to as “fossilised lightning.” Formed when electricity discharges into the ground, these formations comprise masses of vitrified organic debris. Made in collaboration with an electro-technician, Dijkman created artificial fulgurites by discharging electricity into earth collected from mining sites in Belgium and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which she then installed in a floor installation.
Second work by Marjolijn Dijkman, RADIANT MATTER is an edited pictorial essay consisting of over 250 freely connected images selected from various disciplines: astronomy, cosmology, medicine, technology, anthropology, and space exploration. Their colour composition is not coincidental; it is based on the gradient seen in scientific observations of cosmic background radiation. The video explores the influence of electromagnetic waves and different kinds of cosmic energies on the human body, the Earth, and other celestial bodies. The images make associative links that highlight the influence of cosmic waves and energy as represented throughout time and culture.
SUN EATERS by Sina Seifee and Jassem Hindi is a contemporary folk dance and installation about the irreconcilable opposition between petro-politics and petro-demonology. Oil is the intimate language of our access to the world, the beautiful wizard, and it can be spelled as a lyrical, mytho-poetic, incarnate object. Oil is a fascinating, complicated, terrible story, filled with gore, ancient gods and revolutionary deeds. Gasoline generates impossible landscapes and pestilent beasts.
RED MUD by Davor Konjikušić shows the aftermath of one of the biggest ecological disasters in Hungary’s history. On October 4, 2010, tank 10 of the aluminium plant MAL in the town of Ajka leaked a million cubic metres of “red mud”, polluting a 40 km2 area. Ten people died, hundreds of homes were destroyed and more than two hundred people were seriously injured. The red mud was the result of a process to convert bauxite into aluminium. It has a high pH of 13 and high alkalinity. It contains heavy metals such as cadmium, chromium, arsenic and mercury that colour the landscape red.
[…] STAIN […] by Ana Torfs is meticulously assembled from found images and texts. The starting-point for this installation are synthetic dyes. In 1856 the 18-year-old English chemistry student William Henry Perkin patented a purple dye, mauve, which he distilled from coal tar. Perkin discovered the dye by coincidence, when he was looking for a synthetic variant of quinine, in the fight against malaria. Mauve was the first mass-produced synthetic dye. The creation of mauve resulted in the emergence of big chemical companies. Bayer, BASF, as well as AGFA, all set out as dye manufacturers, during the second half of the 19th century. A sample book in which Bayer presented its range of colours on feathers was one of the sources of inspiration for this work. The research on synthetic dyes from coal tar induced many other discoveries and was crucial for the development of explosives, medicines and pesticides. It is almost as if the ancient dream of the alchemist is realised: instead of creating gold out of lead, all the colours of a rainbow were produced from the darkest black of coal tar. Torfs selected 20 representative synthetic dyes, with such evocative names as Congo Red, Bismarck Brown, Paris Violet and Uranin, and searched for connected images, each image bearing a number.
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SIX SAMPLES OF DISASTER is organised and produced by: Art Pavilion in Zagreb and Out of Sight, Antwerp
Supported by: Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, The City of Zagreb, Tourism Association for the City of Zagreb, Flanders — State of the Art, Austrian Cultural Forum Zagreb, Mu.Zee Oostende
Thank you: Royal Norwegian Embassy, Center KNAP