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Opening: 29.9.2023, 19h

Midd opening: 14.10.2023, 19h

Finissage: 3.11.2023, 19h

Exhibition duration: 30.9 – 3.11.2023

Opening hours: Every Saturday from 14h to 18th

About the exhibition:

“A culture of domination is anti-love. It requires violence to sustain itself. To choose love is to go against the prevailing values of the culture. Many people feel unable to love either themselves or others because they do not know what love is.” Bell Hooks (1994)

In the light of the current situation deeply shaped by conflicts and disasters caused by anthropocentric politics, actions and practices, we ask ourselves the question: “What’s love got to do with it?” 

In her writings Bell Hooks identifies Love as a blind spot within the human struggle for liberation, from oppression and exploitation. The white male supremacist domination of the planet attributed to love becoming a symptom of weakness, that love has no value. We might have forgotten what love really is or perhaps we’ve never really understood its meaning since it became capitalized and traded as a commodity-chain, sold as desire that can and should be consumed at a fast pace. Love in its true meaning is something that people might feel ashamed to relate with, as an old-fashioned concept, in the same way Tina Turner declined love in her musical success hit in 1984.

Loving is a verb that demands for action and for choice and can become an important tool to decolonize and to demystify systems of oppression. We need to critically question our position within the planet of beings and things. To love is to care for the others. Love is rooted in community, in exchange and democratic choices. In order to recover love we need social changes rooted in new love ethics. The exhibition “What’s love got to do with it?” aims to be an essay and a tribute to new love politics acknowledging caring as a crucial facet of Love for creating, repairing, and empowering our relations with the world. 

Interstitial Alchemy by Catarina Reis

In ancient times practitioners of alchemy sought the transmutation of matter and the production of an elixir that would induce rejuvenation and cure all diseases, in a time when art, science, and mysticism belonged to the same realm. Although most of alchemy’s claims have been disproved by modern science, we now acknowledge its influence on the development of scientific methods. Through  speculative and ‘magical’ practices and narratives, alchemists dreamed of science for the future.

Interstitial Alchemy presents an experiment of practice-based artistic research, that speculates on the healing of aquatic ecosystems, through a process of transmutation of micro pollutants. The transmutation is mediated by a set of objects made from Zeolite clay. Zeolites possess a cage-like molecular structure that enables the selective ‘trapping’ of pollutants and toxins. To optimize this property, the work tests the production of porous and permeable objects, creating micro interstitial spaces, that could contribute to different ecological functions. This work is particularly interested in how an intervention on a microscale can affect broader ecosystems and their territories. In the last years scientists have demonstrated that ecological variability at small spatial scales—often less than a square meter — can have very significant consequences in big territories. So could we perform micro interventions that produce relevant transformations, potentially independent from anti-ecological political and economic and forces?

The installation is composed of three water tanks, connected through a water flow circuit. In the main tank is a set of Zeolite ceramic objects, capable of purifying the water. Behind the main water tank there are two screens representing two different scales of this system. In the other two tanks there is clean water, which the public is invited to contaminate with heavy metals and toxins, performing the role of a pollutant agent. Through this interaction the public is confronted with the negative effects of human actions in local aquatic environments, but also with the possibility of their remediation. While the water is flowing, the objects trap the noxious substances, changing their microstructure and physical appearance.

The design of these objects is inspired by the study of estuary oysters and freshwater pearl mussels – fundamental ecosystem healers capable of filtering  dozens of liters of water per day. The species of freshwater pearl mussel Margaritifera margaritifera is currently endangered in the Danube, even though it can live up to 100 years or even more. As many other mollusks, mussels form pearls when a strange particle, bacteria or virus penetrates inside of the shell, by building layers of nacre. In this work, Catarina proposes to explore an ‘alchemic’ transmutation of micro pollutants inspired by oysters and mollusks’ capacity to persist and create beauty out of trauma.

Opening: 1.9.2023, 19h

Exhibition duration: 2.9.- 21.9.2023

Opening hours from 14h to 19h: 2.9, 3.9, 10.9, 11.9