Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin exhibit 2017
In cooperation with Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin's
Faculty of Life Sciences, Campus Nord Branch Library
& Berlin Science Week
Faculty of Life Sciences, Campus Nord Branch Library
& Berlin Science Week
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And with applause for Natural History Museums,
our world's bastions for evolution, Art Science Exhibits presents! "Appealing to the Populous" Curatorial Concept by mp Warming
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For reasons of analogy, I'll describe the storyline of my favorite documentary, Herzog's The White Diamond. If you haven't seen it, I hope you do. It's excellent.
The film is about a British Botanist who creates a white blimp that he and his team bring to the Amazon. The idea is to find plant specimens at the top-most level of the rain forest. The scientist hopes to discover medicines from these plants- so the project is well funded. |
The film's subtle subtext is revealed as their African guide explains about the medicinal plants he finds in forest caves, while concurrently, the blimp fails to fly. I think of the subtext as “subtle” because I've watched the film with friends who didn't notice this pivotal element. Obviously, it is a comment on lost ways of discovery, superimposed by manifest-destiny-like ventures.
The way I see it, Western art, like Western science, is derived from the same promotion of individualist perspectives. And the lack of understanding collective interactions and approaches goes to the core of our ravaging of nature. Our greatest hope is that scientists of all disciplines are beginning to work in multidisciplinary teams to better understand collective behaviors and systems.
The beauty of collective understanding is far reaching. In her book The Whole Creature: Complexity, Biosemiotics and the Evolution of Culture, Dr. Wendy Wheeler explains collective understanding as an evolutionary change in our collective unconscious. In her feminist view, this change, most noticeable in scientific exploration, will allow us to create egalitarian societies for the future.
This exhibition is an appeal for a further experiment, one where leading-edge creative teams include artists, not only as visual communicators and designers, but as conceptual partners.
The multimedia exhibition includes a group of artists who span the globe- from Japan reaching westward to New Zealand. Work showcased is by lesser-known community artists as well as award-winning internationals. From this broad net of diversity, we've built the thematic, “Appealing to the Populous”. With this slightly ironic title, we can consider the subtleties, along with the trials artists encounter in their efforts to communicate nature science while petitioning for preservation.
The way I see it, Western art, like Western science, is derived from the same promotion of individualist perspectives. And the lack of understanding collective interactions and approaches goes to the core of our ravaging of nature. Our greatest hope is that scientists of all disciplines are beginning to work in multidisciplinary teams to better understand collective behaviors and systems.
The beauty of collective understanding is far reaching. In her book The Whole Creature: Complexity, Biosemiotics and the Evolution of Culture, Dr. Wendy Wheeler explains collective understanding as an evolutionary change in our collective unconscious. In her feminist view, this change, most noticeable in scientific exploration, will allow us to create egalitarian societies for the future.
This exhibition is an appeal for a further experiment, one where leading-edge creative teams include artists, not only as visual communicators and designers, but as conceptual partners.
The multimedia exhibition includes a group of artists who span the globe- from Japan reaching westward to New Zealand. Work showcased is by lesser-known community artists as well as award-winning internationals. From this broad net of diversity, we've built the thematic, “Appealing to the Populous”. With this slightly ironic title, we can consider the subtleties, along with the trials artists encounter in their efforts to communicate nature science while petitioning for preservation.
