Press Release
Amid a world rapidly changing under the weight of climate change, the exhibition I Feel the Earth Whisper at the Museum Frieder Burda invites us to contemplate the fragile beauty of the natural world and our profound interconnectedness with it—through installations by Bianca Bondi, Julian Charrière, Sam Falls, and Ernesto Neto. Encompassing sculpture, painting, video, and photography in evocative scenarios, the show curated by Patricia Kamp and Jérôme Sans invites us to perceive ourselves as part of nature, its forests, and the unique ecosystems of our planet, encouraging us to reclaim our historically rooted role as respectful guardians of these vibrant habitats and to tell new, caring stories about our relationship with the Earth—true “planetary” love stories.
International Archives 1st half of 2024
I Feel the Earth Whisper
Museum Frieder Burda, Baden Baden (Germany)
15.06 - 03.11.2024
Uniquely united for the first time, the artists’ exhibited works draw our gaze to natural landscapes outside and invite the living world into the museum, creating engaging spaces that inspire us to consider more-
By weaving together threads of mythology, cosmology, and ecology—our shared heritage and future—the exhibition I Feel the Earth Whisper contemplates how the modern Western world, by commodifying nature, has progressively alienated itself from the Earth and its wisdom, reducing it to an abstract, subordinate entity driven by human desires. The show eschews a nostalgic or idealistic return to the ethos of the nature movements of the 1960s, advocating instead a profound reengagement with the forgotten languages of nature.
The relentless drive for rationalization and secularization of Western society have led to a loss of magic, mystery, and deeper meaning once found in our communion with the natural world. This disconnect is characterized by a profound disenchantment and a physical disconnection in contemporary life. Such disembodiment, or the separation of mind from body and self from nature, has made it easier to objectify, commodify, and destroy the natural systems that sustain us.
Unraveling the persistent myth of a dichotomy between the natural world and human civilization, this exhibition confronts the naive assumption that humanity can control nature. Rather than engaging in a relationship of domination, the exhibition advocates healing and a renewed humility before the grandeur of creation, encouraging us to cultivate a sentient, embodied, and reciprocal relationship with the natural worlds that recognizes our interdependence and the inherent value of all life forms.
Highlighting our roles as active agents of change, each artist’s installation urges us to embrace our relationship with the natural world with radical intimacy and to remember: our bodies are not separate from the soil, our veins flow with the same water as the rivers, and our lungs are one with the trees. Like an invitation to feel its vibrating pulse anew, I Feel the Earth Whisper is a resounding declaration of love to our Earth and all its animate worlds, (re)learning to live in symbiosis together.
Exhibition 15 June -
© ArtCatalyse International / Marika Prévosto 2024 All Rights Reserved
Bianca Bondi, Salt kisses my lichens away, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Mor Charpentier © Bianca Bondi. Photo credit : N. Kazako
