Tales of Water is a collaborative visual arts show co-produced between Skye Gallery and ETHER Arts Project, in conjunction with CORE (Community Office for Resource Efficiency), in the framework of their 2nd annual Imagine Climate, a month-long initiative that explores creative perspectives on climate change.
The show, planned to be held between March 13th and April 14th 2020, examines the importance of water as a non-renewable resource through the lens of scientific data, documentary photography, painting, sculpture, and videoart.
A day after concluding the install, the WHO declares CoronaVirus as a Global Pandemic. The cases are multiplied by thousands in a matter of hours, and the programming, which aimed at attracting the community through participative events using art as a tool to deepen the connection between the viewers and the water crisis, had to be widely modified. If there is something learned from water, is that it is always transforming.
Even so, and appealing to human sensitivity in a way only art can, the selection of works and artists aims to a poetic that crosses the aesthetic experience with tangible reality. From Patagonia to the North Pole, artists of different nationalities, mediums and experiences develop a narrative about the element that joins us as humanity. The proliferation of digital media allows us to spread the message through social media, websites and virtual guided tours.
We understand that, as humans, we are mostly made of water, our planet is water, and our primitive life forms stem out of water. It is based on this primary need that we configurate our cities’ maps, towns, and settlements. We also acknowledge the vulnerability of this precious element that is under serious threat.
The Works by Tania Dibbs open like veins of the earth. Layers of imaginary maps and graphite representations overlap between arctic bubbles under the ice. This virtuous and accomplished artist explores the jagged intersection between the natural world, humanity and culture through painting and sculpture. Her works combine symbols of wealth and culture with their opposites, highlighting a bigger discussion about our fast-changing relationship with the planet and with nature in general, which claims its space climbing over technological waste and rusty remains. Is it necessary to say this is exactly where we are heading at?
The disposable culture of unproportionate consumerism finds a new manifestation in the works of Yuri Z. This American artist, long time based in Paris, works with the intersection between classical, digital and hybrid mediums. Majorly self-taught, he takes inspiration from science and literature, and a life dedicated to exploring cities and landscapes around the world. His “micro-chip painting series” use as a medium tiny motherboards, video-cards and other electronic circuit board remains that once were data connectors. The rapid advancement of technology makes these waste a pile of useless trash.
With infinite myope patience, Yuri paints over minuscule landscapes, natural and urban portraits on emerald backgrounds. The journey of a water drop and its ripple effect, a floating iceberg, an evergreen cascade, a tsunami, a demonstration against climate change, a dismembered mermaid, a hidden group of jellyfish. We need a magnifying glass to get in and discover the details enclosed in each micro-world.
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