Current positions of nature in art and design landscape architecture
The exhibition (re) designing nature presents over 30 international projects of the nature of visual art and design in landscape architecture. The focus is on advanced design concepts of nature in urban areas. "I would argue that design is one of the terms that have replaced the word 'revolution'! To say that everything must be designed and redesigned (including nature), implies that it is neither revolutionary nor to be modernized," noted the French sociologist and philosopher Bruno Latour. He touched the essential core of the Zeitgeist and current significance of the word ‘design’, which prompted the curators of (re) desinging nature to select this as a thematic element of the exhibition's title.
But what does contemporary nature design look like? Increasing deserted villages, biodiversity loss and climate change require a reflection of our relation with nature. In addition, according to recent studies, human life and work will increasingly focus on selected megacities that are growing at a rapid pace, while in return, other Western European cities will shrink considerably due to the closure of important industries and the relocation of certain segments of the population in the coming decade. As a result, slums and aggressively growing suburbs sprout up in the cities, but also concrete empty spaces, leftover areas and non-places that can be understood as an opportunity to bring back "nature" to the city or similarly to reconsider the relationship between landscape and city.
In addition to artistic installations which generally reflect our relationship with nature, the exhibition introduces three main strategies that contemporary landscape architects and artists in the design of nature pursue. These include, first, ecological security and the sustainable reuse of post-industrial areas as well as the redevelopment of problematic urban areas and heavily-loaded traffic routes. In so doing, contaminated areas are “renatured”, and urban and landscape structures are interwoven to each other or, put otherwise, the (natural) environment and infrastructure melt into an ecological system.
Another approach provides, among others, the conditions, devices and equipment for agricultural and architectural projects which are focused on participatory projects in the urban space. Finally, a third parasitic and symbiotic strategy in the current natural design can be identified: artists and landscape architects design gardens and techno hybrid plants that embed themselves in places where they are not necessarily officially desired, or are at least unusual. They attack dilapidated, unused and neglected parts of the urban system and change them in a subtle way.
The focus on these three modes of action and strategies makes it clear that there are some similar conceptual and formal approaches to natural styles in landscape architecture and art, and explains the interdisciplinary nature of (re) designing nature.
With its encompassing concept, the exhibition also reacts to the phenomenon that collaborations between artists and landscape architects are no longer rare, thereby reflecting the development that, on the one hand, young landscape architects today see themselves more strongly committed to an artistic aspiration, and on the other hand, contemporary art increasingly takes on projects which traditionally fall within the field of landscape architechts, arcitechts or urban planners.
Curators: Susanne Witzgall, Florian Matzner, Iris Meder
Initiative and Coordination: Maria Auböck
There will be a bilingual catalog is published by Hatje Cantz Verlag.
List of the arts, architects and landscape architects:
Balmori Associates, Vincent Callebaut, James Corner of Field Operations / Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Regula Dettwiler, Anna Detzlhofer / Max Rieder, Gross.Max / Mark Dion, Hager Landscape Architecture, Paula Hayes, Christine & Irene Hohenbüchler
Natalie Jeremijenko, Khondaker Hasibul Kabir, Latz + Partner, Reiner Maria Matysik, Isa Melsheimer
Metagardens, Christian Philipp Müller / Jochen Koppensteiner, N55, Observatorium, Paperopoli
R&Sie(n), Tomas Saraceno, Schweingruber Zulauf, Ken Smith, Bert Theis, Ingo Vetter / Annette Weisser, Lois Weinberger, West 8 / Mrio arquitectos
26 November 2010 - 23 January 2011
Künstlerhaus k / haus, Karlsplatz 5, A-1010 Wien, Tel +43 1 5879663 21
opening times: Daily 10:00-18:00, Thu 10:00-21:00
