Wilderness
2015
Group show at New Shelter Plan curated in collaboration with Wendy Plovmand
Artists: Sidsel Christensen, Lucy Clout
Jesse Darling & Takeshi Shiomitsu, Noémie Goudal, Anne Haaning, Nicolai Howalt, Jesper Just, Absalon Kirkeby, Tove Kommedal, Kristin Luke, Dorine van Meel, Eoghan Ryan, Søren Thilo Funder, Wendy Plovmand, Ebbe Stub Wittrup
The exhibition Wilderness seeks to reconsider the classic concept of wilderness as received according to 19th Century notions of ‘nature’. What is it, exactly, that we search for in our desire for wilderness — where and how do we gain access to the untouched, the mysterious, the unruly, the chaotic and the fantasy of independence in contemporary society?
The idea is to explore Wilderness both by revisiting the natural phenomenon in a nostalgic and romantic sense and by extending the concept to include the contemporary setting of an entropically evolved, human-made world. Aware that Wilderness is a cultural construction, tied to perception of place, system, structure, civilisation and state, we propose various sites for wilderness in a contemporary world – psychological, philosophical, therapeutical, political, social, digital and anarchic sites of wilderness, for example.
The show investigates a contemporary phenomenon of Wilderness that might signify release from the normative and ‘civilized’ – when exploring untamed nature or the troubled unconscious, when transcending consciousness altogether or in interactions with the endless possibilities arising from social networks, notably editing and sharing in a digital context.
Wilderness will also influence the architecture of the exhibition space itself, which will undergo new modifications.
The exhibition is kindly supported by: The Danish Art Council, Bikubenfonden, City of Copenhagen, Knud Højgaard Foundation, Tuborg Foundation and Carlsberg.
