Touch Nature

curated by Sabine Fellner & Alex Radu

with an exhibition design by Justin Baroncea & Maria Ghement

"Nature must be experienced through feeling."

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859)

the father of climatology, ecology and oceanography

The continuous, unrestricted exploitation and increasingly market-driven economy of the resources and the widespread intervention of society upon the biologic, geologic and atmospheric processes of the Earth have not only led to a constantly expanding loss of unspoiled nature as an emotional resource but to the destruction of vital spaces, the extinction of species and to humanitarian, political and economic crises as well.

It has been a considerably long time that artists have dealt in their works with the interference between human beings and their environment, having visualised the fundamental and irreversible changes of our planet, the terrifying consequences of the Anthropocene. Numerous exhibitions are nowadays reacting on an international level to this urging problem of our times, trying to elucidate the fact that the subject matter of the environment has arrived in the contemporary art scene for a considerable period of time by now. In this context, Touch Nature is asking questions and seeking for answers to the fact that art has developed as being confronted with the increasing destruction, but also as a consequence of the escalating menace that nature represents for mankind.

In Touch Nature at /SAC, the works of Austrian and Romanian artists engage in a dialogue proposing a critical look at the profound transformation of our planetary ecosystem in the Anthropocene and examining the ecological crisis from different perspectives. Through specific artistic mediums, each contribution formulates its opposition against the exploitation of man and nature on a global level or projects hopeful visions regarding new human–non-human dynamics/compositions. Introspectively, the exhibition-installation becomes an immersion in the spectral diversity of attitudes, experiences and psycho-emotional reactions related to the devastating effects of the ecocidal Anthropocene: from activism to climate anxiety, solastalgia, melancholy, shadowtime, depression, abandonment, and back to imaginings of innovative sustainable solutions. Demonstrating through documentation, formulating protests and conceiving possible-but-which-may-seem utopian scenarios represent the fundamental methods of this artistic confrontations at /SAC.

Part of the international journey of one of the largest and most challenging itinerant curatorial endeavours of its kind, the Touch Nature exhibition acquires in Bucharest a new interface between external and local contributions. Continuing a specific type research at /SAC, that of the (group) exhibition (space) as an medium in itself and meeting place implicitly approached collaboratively, the Touch Nature mise-en-scène is different from the practices/paradigms of white-cube, thus the exhibition design is conceived as an installation in itself, with its narratives connected to curatorial intentions. The exhibition takes place in both locations of /SAC, Berthelot and Malmaison – distinct spaces both in terms of architecture and context. Each setting/medium has a different story and (re)contextualises the works in the discourse, while still keeping a continuity between them, but also a surprising contrast. At Berthelot, we become residents of a standard house from an imagined future, while at Malmaison we get lost in a laboratory-archive – a mutation in the evolution of the wunderkammer and collector's room concepts – with countless artistic curiosities (perspectives) from a past that has become today's present.

/SAC @ Berthelot

The setup of a standard home is a deeply evocative portrait of the societal structure in a chosen moment of time, and how that period has moulded the human way of living. You are now an inhabitant in an anthropocenic home comprising 130 sqm in 5 General H. M. Berthelot Street, Bucharest, Romania. You may start to look for ways to build liveable environments within closed walls, environments that will function with the use of bacteria and plants, and our own bodies as resources.

/SAC @ Malmaison

Malmaison dormitory: exhibition / aggregation space for leaves and objects assembled from white profiles; support for a profile sketch of a new kind of everyday reality: the Anthropocene. 185x90x40 white modules arranged by a grid of washed cement, mixing system for approximately traditional expression mediums. Art flower shop or green gallery with 21 curiosities and a TV, among 192 plants taken 4 per shelf. One mention: do not pull the doorknob (it’s not interactive), the entrance is in the living room, through the backdoor.

Artists: Uli Aigner, Matei Bejenaru, Floriama Candea, Codruța Cernea, Adriana Chiruta, Ciprian Ciuclea, Larisa Crunțeanu, Anna Dumitriu & Alex May, Michael Endlicher, Thomas Feuerstein, Peter Hauenschild, Barbara Anna Husar, Nona Inescu, Kitty Kino, Aurora Kiraly, Alexandra Kontriner, Ana Maria Micu, Nicoleta Mureș, Klaus Pichler, Monika Pichler, PRINZpod, Oliver Ressler, Gregor Sailer, Elisabeth von Samsonow, Hans Schabus, Ramona Schnekenburger, Marielis Seyler, Paul Spendier, Oana Stanciu, Mircea Suciu, Dan Vezentan, Judith Wagner, Nives Widauer, Laurent Ziegler

Curators: Sabine Fellner & Alex Radu

Exhibition design: Justin Baroncea & Maria Ghement

/SAC Team: Andreea Chircă, Iulian Cristea, Lidia Dobrea, Anne Lolea, Elena Maxemciuc

Graphic design: Irina Radu

The exhibition is organised by /SAC Bucharest and the Austrian Cultural Forum, with the support of the Federal Ministry of European and International Affairs of the Republic of Austria.