resapaldo

The artists within this exhibition seek to unmask, acknowledge and make room for novel ways of living and engaging with the world beyond generations of religious, political, and cultural canons built on exploitative foundations– in the context of nature, of one another and power. In the process of examining the physical and spiritual relationship between the body, self, and the earth, a number of the artists within Nature Holds a Mirror (expanded) turn to indigenous and ancient knowledge, rituals, traditions and organic processes grounded in self-repairing– intrinsically tied to collective healing.

Identity becomes key when engaging with Nature Holds a Mirror (expanded), as this plays a significant role within the political landscape today, into which bodily autonomy has been inserted. Moreover, inflicting control over the body for the purposes of defending political beliefs and agendas remains an abuse of power intricately connected to the way land is considered property and exploited. From this perspective, the artists within the exhibition examine the idea of the landscape by questioning the colonisation of environments where humans and ecosystems are not two separate entities but part of a whole. With this in mind, the suggestion that bodies are symbolic of land and vice versa becomes palpable. In this way, the artists subvert the idea of possession and territory by continuing to evolve how the natural world is depicted, seeking to further this romanticized genre–by reimagining nature through their own revised memories, perspective-shifting experiences and their innate values and desires to move past a fragmented and ultimately incomplete view of the world. + Read more

Nature Holds a Mirror (expanded) reflects upon the paradoxical and connected symptoms of a deeper global emergency. Through their work, the artists within the exhibition recognise a world where everyone’s autonomy and rights are in direct correlation with the appreciation and treatment of the earth. Within their dreamlike, surreal and abstracted worlds, they present and celebrate an interrelated context, one where the role of the hero, dominance and singular views are questioned. Where nature and the landscape are a protagonist, a reflector, a revealer and an ultimate force. The works presented within Nature Holds a Mirror (expanded) speak of hybridity with the aim of transcending dualisms– by refocusing into a practice of empathy, mirroring and of expanding our understanding of interconnectedness as essential to symbiotic survival, mutual intelligibility and reliance. + Read less + Read less