All experts agree that the climate crisis is the challenge of the 21st century and that a race against time is on. A race to try to preserve our natural habitat in its beauty and diversity, to protect our ecosystems, our natural resources and pass them on to future generations. Beyond the political and legal agreements that are essential to prepare the future, change requires an evolution of mentalities, a different way of considering the place of humans in nature.
This change in mentality can be brought about by artists, who have the capacity to change the way we look at the world, and who produce universal messages. And because the place of digital technology in the social debate is growing, because consciences are now also forged online, we decided to focus on these digital artists who take up the theme of life and biodiversity: they contribute to the emergence of a consciousness to think about the reconciliation of humanity with itself and with life, and represent, in an assertive way or not, a form of Art committed to the environment that we could call green artivism.
This is why the non-profit organization Culture For Causes Network organized a digital art exhibition at UNESCO HQ on November 25 and 26, 2022, on the occasion of Earth University. Iconic works were exhibited in situ and a virtual gallery extend this art installation into dematerialized space.
The works presented explore the theme of the reconciliation of humanity with itself and with the living, with the aim of questioning our species on the necessity of the change of posture that we must adopt towards the other forms of life. They invite humans to a face-to-face encounter with living beings in order to underline the interdependence, the history and the common destiny of species, but also the certain interest in an intelligent cohabitation. Whether it is through a meditative contemplation of the living, through the borrowing of facts and scientific data from biology or the theory of evolution, biodiversity is at the heart of this exhibition. The works also invite a poetic reflection on the reconciliation and co-habitation of species.
Visitors were able to contemplate the works of zancan (France), Refik Anadol (United States & Turkey), Sofia Crespo & Feileacan McCormick (Argentina and Norway), Polina Kuznetsova (Ukraine), Nikolina Kovalenko (United States), Di Couto (Brazil) and the generative art collective Phaust (United Kingdom), and the international environmental graphics from The 4th Block, PosterTerritory and Biophilia poster.
Refik Anadol (1985) is a media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of machine intelligence. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where he owns and operates Refik Anadol Studio and RAS LAB, the Studio’s research practice centered around discovering and developing trailblazing approaches to data narratives and artificial intelligence.
Zancan, generative artist from Bordeaux, France, has been both a painter and a programmer for four decades. By synergizing his former practice as a painter with the computer code medium, he enlightened the graphical possibilities of a « figurative-generative » art genre. His renderings of natural shapes with programming code remind us of the necessary bond between man and nature, raising attention about environmental and social matters. Zancan’s series “Garden, Monoliths” and “The Lushtemples” released as NFTs have become the top-selling collections on Tezos, an environment-friendly blockchain.
Entangled Others is the shared studio practice of artists Feileacan McCormick and Sofia Crespo. Their work focuses on ecology, artificial lifeforms and generative arts, with an emphasis on giving the more-than-human new forms a presence and life in digital space. This involves exploring questions of relationship, biodiversity, and awareness through biology-inspired technologies. They highlight how through conscious efforts, new technology can be used to bring attention and awareness to the unseen that we are tightly interwoven with.
Nikolina is interested in humanity’s psychological connection with Nature and strives to expose the consequences our everyday actions have on the environment. The artist works with fragile ecosystems creating artwork inspired by locations specific to each project. Her subjects range from global warming, deforestation and coral bleaching, to processing and interpreting visual landscape and cultural associations. Kovalenko’s work has been reviewed in art blogs, newspapers and magazines and is in numerous corporate and private collections worldwide.
Phaust is a generative art collective based in London and Brighton. With backgrounds in computer science and neuroscience, their work explores the eternal intersection between art and science. Randomness is explored and embraced as a creative force and a way of examining our place in increasingly complex systems.
Polina Kuznetsova is a contemporary artist born in Kharkiv (Eastern Ukraine). One of the main places in her art practice is the landscape, as evidenced by the poetic glorification of Ukrainian nature in the series “Magic Landscapes”. Polina graduated from the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Art. Her works were presented at numerous international exhibitions including the United States, EU, China, and the Philippines.
Di Couto is a Brazilian painter, muralist and illustrator. She has been working with art for 15 years, but after becoming a mother, she changed her aesthetics and approach, bringing themes about her experience with motherhood and our vision of the feminine to the walls and screens. She brings to her art symbols about her trajectory, mythology and Brazilian culture.
Nanda Khiara uses paint to bring to the fore her passion for life – with an abstract expressionist style. Her paintings are warm and vivid, profound and complex, lyrical and romantic and even dark and mystifying with a deep sense of herself. British by nationality and Indian by origin, Nanda is a true global citizen with her footprint all over the world – Kuwait, London, Hong Kong, Dubai and now Mumbai. With a Bachelors Degree in Interior Design from American College London and an MBA from the University of Westminster, Nanda gave up the pinstripe suit to explore a new paradigm – the paradigm of colours.
Ni da Costa is a Brazilian visual artist, with a BFA in Printmaking from EBA-UFRJ, she lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. She uses various media, such as painting, photography and drawing, she loves animation, which has been exploring more now that started working with the digital universe, this year she started to explore the metaverse and learn more about its countless possibilities. She has been participating in collective and individual exhibitions since 1985 in many art institutions and art salons in Brazil and abroad.
Association of graphic designers the 4th Block is a non-profit organization that more than 30 years has united graphic designers worldwide to find new ideas for overcoming the world’s environmental and social problems through the art of posters. Nowadays, the International triennial of eco-posters “the 4th Block” is the most significant design festival in Eastern Europe.
PosterTerritory initiative is a multimedia platform that launches environmentally conscious poster exhibitions and graphic design campaigns in the US and abroad. The projects under its umbrella promote environmental, social, and political causes and feature works by many renowned contemporary artists. PosterTerritory exhibits are displayed in galleries and virtual showrooms all over the world.
Since 2014 MuseumWeek has grown to include over 60,000 participants from 100+ countries. It has has become the first virtual, worldwide cultural event on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Weibo, WeChat and VKontakte.
Fondation CHANEL officially supported MuseumWeek during a three-year program devoted to develop the international movement #WomenInCulture
The New York Times partnered with MuseumWeek in 2019 around the movement #WomenInCulture
The Art Explora foundation initiates a residency program for artists and researchers from around the worlds sharing culture with everyone so we all open up to one another is breaking down the walls that separate us. This is the ideal that drives Art Explora, and all of us, cultural professionals and volunteers, from all walks of life.
Europa Nostra was founded on 29 November 1963 in Paris. For over 50 years, Europa Nostra have celebrated, protected and lobbied for cultural heritage.
The Wikimedia Foundation partnered with MuseumWeek in 2019 in France to organise an edith-a-thon at the Château de Montsoreau
CloudGuide is the leading global sightseeing app, providing incredible interactive visitor experiences for museums and cultural heritage sites across the world. More than 1200 sites in 26 countries trust them to provide effective, user-friendly online tours of their monuments, museums and heritage sites.
Founded in 2015, MTArt Agency is a certified B Corp®. award-winning agency for the most exciting up and coming visual artists worldwide. MTArt Agency artists have partnered with Cannes Film Festival, brands including Aston Martin and Chloé, government bodies including the Mayor of Paris, Mayor of London and Camden Council, transit hubs such as Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport and Saint- Lazare train station, as well as, with museums, auction houses, and private collectors. MTArt Agency is proud to partner with MuseumWeek for the second time
The Portinari Project is dedicated to the rescue and democratization of the life and work of the Brazilian painter Candido Portinari. It contributes to the country’s historical-cultural knowledge, promotes art and education for children and adolescents, and recovers Portinari’s pictorial, ethical and humanistic legacy through the Survey, Research and Cataloging, and Democratization programs of a comprehensive and detailed collection documentary of the artist. There are 5,400 works and 30,000 documents in its documentary collection. Visit www.portinari.org.br
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