Making use of a new sponge resulting from recent IIT research into porous nano-structured materials, and reasoning on its possible use for “capturing” hydrocarbons spilt into the sea, the work itself is a way of prompting reflection on technology’s contribution to dealing with environmental disasters caused by man.
The sinking of the petrol tanker Haven in the roadstead of Genova was one of the Mediterranean’s most serious episodes of hydrocarbon pollution, and its consequences are still being felt in spite of efficient cleaning up operations. To mark the disaster’s 20th anniversary, the artist has created a new multimedia work inspired by technological research which has taken place
POST HUMAN GARDEN/ GIARDINO POSTUMANO
Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Villa Croce
29 giugno – 28 agosto 2011 – prorogata fino al 6 Settembre 2011
Inaugurazione: 28 giugno ore 18.00 a cura di Paola Valenti, in collaborazione con Daniela Legotta e Alessandra Piatti di Associazione Ko.JI.Ku.
con il sostegno di ADAC (Archivio d’Arte Contemporanea, Universita’ degli Studi di Genova)
Post Human Garden is a site specific project created by Maria Rebecca Ballestra especially for the sala Camino/Fireplace Room in the Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art in the context of the exhibition project CHANGING PERSPECTIVES which is entirely dedicated to her work. Following her latest research linked to the post-human theme, and reflecting on the borders between nature and science and between artificial and natural, the artist has created a new multimedia work, inspired by the most recent debates regarding genetic modification, transgenic creations and biotechnology. An artificial garden was created
Maria Rebecca Ballestra CHANGING PERSPECTIVES/CAMBIANDO PROSPETTIVE giugno – novembre 2011
MUSEO D’ARTE CONTEMPORANEA VILLA CROCE
MUSEO DELLE CULTURE DEL MONDO CASTELLO D’ALBERTIS
PALAZZO DUCALE – SALA DOGANA UNIMEDIAMODERN CONTEMPORARY ART
GENOA
The installation is composed by five lecterns on a table. Each lectern holds a dictionary in one of the five languages of the five biggest economic powers: Chine, US, India, Japan, Russia. The word “extinction” has been underlined in every dictionary, whether it refers to a lack of food resources or the increase of pandemic diseases. The bookmark of each dictionary is tied to five frogs lying on the ground. As it happened in the past, each extinction is followed by the birth of a new species and by a new geological era.
Children playing without a care in a playground; a sudden storm disturbs the afternoon peace. A catastrophic sequence of floods, inundations, and tornados becomes part of a little girl’s dreams so that she wakes up screaming, overcome with panic by such a terrible but realistic nightmare. This was how the video started, shown at the opening of the Climate Change Conference organised by the United Nations in Copenhagen on 7 December 2009: The representatives from 192 countries worldwide participating in the conference had gathered with the objective of reaching an agreement to reduce fossil energy consumption, one of the main
AL-GHAIB, Aesthetics of the disappereance
