Pangea United 22.03–9.06.2019 Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi Więckowskiego 36 msl.org.pl It is more than likely […] that we are no longer the citizens of any one particular state. Deep down, we carry within us the countries that we were born in: this means their chaotic diversity, rivers and mountain ranges, forests and savannahs, the changing seasons, birdsong, insects, air, sweat and humidity, grime and city noises, laughter, disorder, and confusion. Achille Mbembe, Politiques de l’inimitié, 2016 [forthcoming in English, 2019, as Necropolitics] The history of Pangaea, or ‘Pangaia’, is the tale of a mega-continent that existed about 200-250 million years ago, combining all the currently separated continental blocks. The fragmented pieces of what was once Pangaea still bear the traces of that oneness. By making use of this geological metaphor, the Pangea United exhibition invites viewers to imagine our earthly community as one household, one home. Artists taking part in the exhibition ask a number of questions in order to spark our ecological imagination. How can prototypes created within the art world teach us responsibility for the often-unnoticed suffering inflicted on other bodies? Can the logic of industrial live- -stock production lead to a similarly objectifying production of human life? What is the environmental potential of humble actions, such as scrubbing floors with recycled fabric, seeding cress in public spaces, or organizing meetings where women can collectively discover the burdensome legacy of patriarchy? What can we learn from people who live in communities under threat of extinction, many of whom belong to so-called indigenous and folk cultures? What would be the value of goods, money and labour in a future devoid of all prospect of economic growth? Why will the borders, zones, and territories that divide the Earth forever remain fictitious and porous? The artworks presented in this exhibition form a kind of essay, a meditation on the matter of human attentiveness and the interdependence of life in all its forms. For far too long, notions such as the utility of production and consumption, the borders between states, or the hierarchies of species, have been used to categorize terrestrial ha- bitation. This exhibition contends that we need to do away with such stridency in favour of images, concepts and feelings capable of expressing the more complex relationships that both unite and divide us. This shall necessitate the harnessing of an awareness of the fragility and malleability of each life, always intersected and stirred by others – other people, living organisms, machines and ecosystems. This approach represents the basis of our search for community. Imposing the intimate scale of a household on the all-encom- passing broadness of our planet can create a new way of looking at these relationships. Perhaps such a filter would allow us to look at how we relate to them with more care, that is with a responsibility for our own position, power and violence, both within the community and within the environment shared with those whom we know, and with those whom we may yet come to know. Joanna Sokołowska Agnieszka Brzeżańska Dissection of a Thought, 2013 oil on canvas, 150 × 200 cm courtesy of the artist and BWA Warsaw What do thoughts look like? How can we ‘show’ intelligence, energy, spirituality, and the flows of emotions conglomerated and dispersed within us as individuals? In her work, Agnieszka Brzeżańska poses questions about the elusive relationships between the various forces of nature and the manifestations of life on Earth, which she perceives as a living and malleable organism. In order to do so, she draws on various sources of knowledge and looks to combine them in an unorthodox way. She takes her inspiration from contemporary physics and philosophy, as well as alternative cognitive systems such as alchemy, parapsychology, esotericism, folk knowledge and deep ecology; all the while setting out forms that capture the complexity of flows between the extra-personal states of matter and energy, which could, for example, drive the human mind. Alan Butler On Exactitude in Science, 2017 two-screen HD Video, 5.1 Surround Audio, Edition 5 + A.P., Koyaanisqatsi (© IRE 1983, All Rights Reserved) courtesy of Godfrey Reggio and the Institute for Regional Education What would the images of Earth and its human inhabitants look like if we were to look at them as if they were an alien planet and species? To what extent do images generated in contemporary techno-culture match our own experience of reality? In 1982, Godfrey Reggio posed these questions in the cult experimental film, Koyaanisqatsi, and in 2017 Alan Butler took up these themes in his two-channel video installation, On Exactitude in Science. In this work, he juxtaposed a projection of Koyaanisqatsi synchronized with his own remake of the film,KoyaanisGTAV . When shooting the remake, he recreated the original frame-by-frame, using the virtual worlds of the Grand Theft Auto computer game series (GTA V). The title On Exactitude in Science was taken from Jorge Luis Borges’ Del rigor en la ciencia (1946), a short story about a fictitious civili- zation that created a monumental 1:1 scale map of its land. As a result, the map overlapped with the territory to such an extent that the two became indistinguishable from one another. In Koyaanisqatsi, Reggio experimented with the medium of film in the analogue formats of 16 mm and 35 mm film in order to capture the enormous scale of the transformation of human experience of the environment by way of the technoscience used in mass production and con- sumption. For this purpose, he looked to the example of North American society at the end of the 20th century. In the Hopi language, the word ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ means ‘the unbalanced life.’ Butler translates and transposes Reggio’s film experiment into a cyber-cultural simulation of reality at the beginning of the 21st century. Carolina Caycedo The Land of Friends, 2014 1 channel HD video, 38’10” YUMA, or the Land of Friends, 2014 digital prints, satellite images courtesy of the artist, Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, and Instituto de Vision, Bogota Carolina Caycedo’s selected works arose from her interest in river ecosystems and the tra- ditional communities associated with them. In this case, Caycedo was drawn to the area along the Magdalena River, known before the colonization of Colombia as Yuma, i.e. the Land of Friends. The starting point for her work with this area was the construction of the El Quimbo Dam, a dam and hydroelectric power plant, by an international private corporation. The mural consists of a series of satellite images of the area (especially of the Huila Department) deeply affected by the environmental impact of the investment. In the composition, the artist juxtaposes and mixes various scales and layers of shots, emphasizing the multidimensionality of the transformations that have taken place. The film The Land of Friends documents the indigenous community that for generations has been connected to Magdalena, and relates, in turn, its struggle for survival in the face of the privatization of a common good that hitherto had been shared by all. Indeed, the investment would wreak havoc and destruction on the surrounding environment and landscape. It also led to the relocation of the local communities and the loss of both their heritage and livelihoods. Caycedo records the complex interweaving of these indigenous cultures with the river, and the threatening prospect of their destruction looming over the deep environmental conscio- usness, linking the spiritual, cultural and economic aspects of life in the area. Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová Things in Our Hands, 2014 melted Euro coins, foam cylinders courtesy of the artists This work is a kind of speculation on the future of money and its use value. The individual elements are made of melted Euro coins, baring visible traces of the hands that held them, which are displayed on foam monuments. Their form freely refers to archaeological objects, such as tools, ornaments or objects of worship. However, their purpose remains unclear. The monetary objects, released by the artists from their social function as established means of measurement and exchange, become a foreign object of indeterminate use value. Are these the traces of pre-capitalist economies based on the exchange of goods and services and hunting and gathering? Or are these objects perhaps finds from a future, where matter, when confron- ted with virtual transactions and new ways of acquiring value, has become superfluous? Czekalska & Golec Avatar II Ag, 1999 silver, copper, 265 × 95 × 50 mm usage: for a five-digit, superior being collection of Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź Avatar pop, 2019 glass, recycled paper, polychrome-plated wood (icon) edition: until stocks last usage: transporting small moving creatures – the gallery’s longest staying guests – to safety courtesy of the artists IMPLANT IHS*, 1995–2018 a space for living, small, mobile, sentient creatures, who in this life received an unfavourable form, i.e. the body of an insect. Architectural incrustation, 1995 * Insect Home System courtesy of the artists The duo’s selected works are prototypes of devices designed for insects. The Avatars – should the prototype come into use – will serve to transport insects to a safe place where people would not be able to trample on them. The word “avatar” comes from the Sanskrit avatāra. In Hinduism, this means the incarnation of a deity who descends from heaven to earth in mortal form in order to bring about salvation. According to this story, man, by ridding himself of pride and paying attention to all creatures, even the smallest and almost unnoticeable, has a chance of receiving spiritual succour from these same creatures.