About the exhibition: What the eyes cannot see, the heart cannot feel

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

more: art-in , dca , kunsthausdresden

About the exhibition: What the eyes cannot see, the heart cannot feel

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

more: art-in , dca , kunsthausdresden

Shifting Geologies, 2020-ongoing, Installation view (detail), Mixed media after simulation of the rock formation process, phosphorescent acrylic tubes on bricks, magnifying glass, illustrations on acetate sheet, 60m2, kunstquartier bethanien, DE, 2022

Shifting Geologies (2020 – ongoing)

Site-specific installation

With Shifting Geologies, an ongoing and constantly expanding artistic research project that began in 2020 and has been in steady motion ever since, artist Silvia Noronha directs her gaze towards a possible future. In the spatial installation, she refers to how archeological findings might look in a distant future, at the same time addressing what this will reveal about how we treat our environments. 

Through a process in which found materials are exposed to extreme heat, the artist imitates an event that is part of geological developments – for example, in the formation of metamorphic rock, which is created by rising temperatures or pressure deep in the earth’s crust, yet retains its solid state during mineralogical transformation. 

From human-made materials like electronics and plastic, residues and remains of civilization combine with natural and organic materials in the individual parts of the installation work, allowing conclusions to be drawn about human activity in the environment. Fused together and pressed into one another, the objects, presented like excavation pieces, reveal something about what human civilization leaves behind and what a geology might look like after human-made and natural materials have merged over time. Shifting Geologies does not paint a dystopian picture of a supposed future, however; rather, it poses the question of what it might look like. 

Text by Vincent Schier for the exhibition 'the breath below'