Edit by Kathryn Weir
arte’m, Napoli, 2024
“Rethinking Nature takes shape from the curatorial choice to ‘explore and disseminate, through the research of forty artists and collectives from around the world, the many themes that make up political ecology. This is a discipline that may seem far removed from contemporary art — and yet it is precisely contemporary art that constitutes the ideal counterpoint to the natural sciences, to the analysis of how (and by whom) our planet’s resources are exploited, and to the dynamics that drive our relationship with the surrounding environment. The most evident outcome of the exhibition — further enriched by new perspectives in this catalogue — is that establishing a single, unified point of view on these subjects is a counterproductive and shortsighted endeavor. It is rather in the multiplicity of viewpoints and sensibilities that are geographically and culturally distant from one another — yet deeply interconnected — that we must seek to understand the rhizomatic cultural and technological system in which we live. The study of the exploitation of raw materials thus goes hand in hand with the suppression of the sacred relationship that for millennia has defined the bond between human beings and nature.” — Angela Tecce, from the introduction to the volume
“The acceleration of global warming, rising sea levels, mass species extinctions, widespread meteorological anomalies, and the flows and infiltrations of toxicity that are impossible to contain: these devastating events cannot be separated from the modern European paradigm that conceives of nature — including much of humanity — as a reserve of resources to be freely exploited for profit. These extractive economies have a long history intertwined with the history of European imperialism and colonialism. The consequences have been devastating: the suppression of indigenous and non-capitalist cultures and knowledge systems, and the vast environmental devastation caused by the pursuit of unlimited growth. Today, the destructive effects of capitalism’s relentless focus on profit and growth are more widely recognized, as the impunity with which it has destroyed worlds and spread toxicity and pollution in its wake is leading to the collapse of ecosystems and the escalation of climate disruption. Contemporary research-based artistic practices are contributing, across diverse contexts, to ecology-centered cultural and political processes that can help rethink conceptions of nature and transform the paradigms inherited from the European Enlightenment sciences that developed in parallel with its imperialist expansion.” — Kathryn Weir