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‘How natural is nature?’ ‘How wild is wilderness?’ (1) New Nature
draws on the ideas of biologist Tim Low to investigate the endlessly
mutating shifts between the natural world and the many and varied
cultural readings of nature.
The exhibition features the work
of twelve artists / collectives from the Pacific Rim
including Cicada, Fiona Hall, I-lann Yee, I-TASC, Yeondoo Jung,
Takashi Kuribayashi, Rosemary Laing, Lin Tianmiao, Jon McCormack,
Joe Sheehan, Tang Maohong and Michael Zavros. Working with
photography, digital media, projection, painting, carving, meteorology,
history, design and gardens, they explore visual and conceptual
constructions of nature and the transgressions nature makes in its
constantly evolving state of flux and adaptation to new circumstances
and conditions.
New Nature looks at the impact of
human habitation, nature as ‘tamed’, ‘interpreted’ and ‘framed’ and
something deeply imbued with metaphorical content. It also
investigates the reciprocal influence of the environment on community
and ecology. Historical, allegorical and culturally specific readings
of wilderness are reference points as notions of natural spaces and
materials are questioned. The slippages between ‘natural’ and
‘constructed’ worlds become fertile, if aberrant, sites for new visual
languages and perceptions to grow.
Low writes; ’It strikes me
that our concepts of nature often don’t match what we actually see. …
The words ‘nature’, ‘natural’ and ‘wilderness’ end up misleading rather
than informing us about the natural world. We shouldn’t presume that
nature, merely by definition, wants to be natural.’ (2)
More information from The Govett-Brewster
(1) Low, Tim, The New Nature, Penguin: Australia, 2002.
(2) Low, Tim, The New Nature, Penguin: Australia, 2002.
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