Arts, science, and climate change: Intertwined entanglements
Critical Zones: In Search of a Common Ground, now in Bengaluru, showcases the works of Uriel Orlow and Ravi Agarwal, apart from photographs, videos and multimedia installations
At a time when climate change has become a buzzword and global machinations are remiss in showing any constructive action, artists and scientists are coming together to show how critical the natural world and our interactions with it are.
The travelling exhibition, Critical Zones: In Search of a Common Ground, after travelling to Mumbai, Colombo, Pune, Kolkata and Delhi, is finally here in Bengaluru. It has brought with it a plethora of photographs, videos and multimedia installations that not only highlight geographically critical zones but also the social fabric enmeshed with the natural world.
The exhibition, which started in 2020 at the ZKM: Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany, is conceptualised around the idea that the habitable zones on Earth only stretch for a few precious kilometres and are critical to life on the planet.
Conceived by Bruno Latour, a French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist, and Peter Weibel, an Austrian artist, curator and visual poet, the exhibition features a unique curatorial method that is based on aesthetics and the participatory capacity of the arts. This method uses the arts to evoke critical thinking on issues such as the climate crisis and shines a light on the intersectional biases that come with it.
“What is man’s attitude towards the planet Earth?” says Francesca Romana Audretsch, the art mediator of the exhibition. “Humanity can no longer deny that the earth has its own agency and is reactive. This relationship is indeed changing, as the climate crisis is urgently showing us. What do we do when our relationship with the Earth is changing? We need to reorient ourselves. What is our next step??
These are some of the questions that drove this exhibition.” This thought exhibition which started out in Germany, aimed to look at the critical situation of the Earth in a novel and diverse way and explore new modes of coexistence between all forms of life, albeit in a European context. It featured Uriel Orlow’s Soil Affinities (also featured in Bengaluru), Edith Morales’s Raíz Aérea (Aerial Root), and Armin Linke’s 2018 film Prospecting Ocean to name a few.
To see how the dualism of nature and culture worked outside of Europe, the exhibition travelled to India and Sri Lanka where an activation programme was created to bring together local artists whose work resonated with Critical Zones.
Hosted at Science Gallery, Bengaluru, in association with the GoetheInstitut / Max Mueller Bhavan, showcases the works of Uriel Orlow and Ravi Agarwal who tackle two important critical zones — soil and water.
Ghost acres
Swiss artist Uriel Orlow’s artwork ‘Soil Affinities’ centres around plants, crops and seeds. It hinges on ‘Ghost acres’ which maps how flora have travelled through different continents, starting from nineteenthcentury Paris suburbs where workers’ gardens were replacing fields as factories taking over.
From there, it delves into the theme of colonial violence and its role in plants and crops as European countries started colonising Africa. Orlow’s work traces these networks of botanical connections and the entanglement between plants, people and places. started
Ocean bond
Closer to home, artist and environmental activist Ravi Agarwal’s artworks titled ‘Ecologies of Loss I & II’ look at the ecological conditions of fishing and the plight of fishermen along the Bay of Bengal as climate crisis escalates. His work captures the junction the outset, I write stuff about the UK as an outsider, when I do those jokes in India or elsewhere, it makes sense because my listeners are outsiders too.”
According to Olga, a lot of UKbased stand ups she looks up to such as Lara Ricote, Janine Harouni and Sara Barron write material as outsiders.
“Lara has a Mexican heritage, while Janine is of LebaneseAmerican origin and Sara is an American. I believe having lived in another culture, it comes more naturally to us to see things as outsiders. We know how to speak to people from a different culture in a way they can relate.”
The biggest message Olga wants to spread “is telling the world to go out and see live comedy.”
“I used to be a fan of comedy on TV and YouTube. But the second I saw live comedy I realised that there is nothing like it. A recorded clip does not communicate even a tenth of the electricity you experience live. The sort of electricity that’s created by both the audience and the performer never compares to a clip. Besides, some jokes are only funny if you’re in the room. So if you think you like comedy, but you’ve only ever seen it recorded, you are in for a treat when you go see it live,” she says.
For updates on Olga’s shows and events log on to rocknrolga.com where globalisation is slowly taking over the lives and livelihoods of rural fishermen. His photographs are layered with Sangam poetry from 300 BCE that echoes the relationship between fishermen and the ocean.
Bringing together not just artists from varied backgrounds but also scientists, the exhibition showcases the realities of the perilous condition of the world’s delicate ecosystems.
It further highlights the shifting of perspective from global to local and vice versa. Mira Hirtz, cocurator of the travelling exhibition and a performing artist herself, says that it was a curatorial decision to
Moglu, defining itself as an edgy veggie restaurant, opens its outlet in Bengaluru.
Cofounded by Ankita Shree, an exIRS officerturnedentrepreneur and Kiran Narayanan, a computational physicist who switched to a culinary career at 40 after training at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York, Moglu will serve an exclusive vegetarian menu.
Some of the dishes you can look forward to are buratta with green beans and toasted lentils, barbecue mushroom burger, spinach coconut lentil soup, beets and paneer salad, crispy okra and tamarind, spaghetti tempeh bolognaise. provide this kind of platform. “The exhibition showcases artworks that have often been conceived in collaborations between artists and scientists, or artists that research with scientific methods and settings. The collaboration of disciplines comes from the desire to describe, understand and coexist with life on Earth,” she says.
“It acknowledges the fact that in the light of a new public awareness on ecological change, we as human beings do not yet understand how ecologies function and are in need of a multiplicity of perspectives, tools and perspective experiments,” she adds.
One of the aims of the exhibition is to evoke thought, says Francesca. “The different disciplines we see in Critical Zones are not considered divided from each other, we want to show arts and sciences as an intertwined entanglement.
The ongoing immiseration in the world is cruel, but we must understand our connectedness to that.”
Commenting on how the travelling exhibition has evolved, Mira says, “The exhibition has brought new ecologies to light. These were less present in the original show in Germany, such as coastal and oceanic habitats. It has also emphasised the importance of the activation program which roots the exhibition in each city through local participants.
The activation program has enabled many dialogues and discussions around the ideas of the exhibition, which was the main purpose of it travelling.” The exhibition not only highlights the climate crisis but also engages with those who entangle with it everyday.
Critical Zones will be on at Science Gallery till March 17
The other highlight is beverages that come with local flavours such as kokum, jackfruit and cardamom that are curated to from an inhouse base liqueurs, like campari and Jamaican rum, limoncello, Venetian campari spritzer, lychee champagne and amaro.
If you want to kickstart your day here then the breakfast menu offers you eggless omelettes, pastries and coffee, served with inhouse sourdough toast.
Average meal for one is priced at ₹1200.
The place can people at a go.
Situated at 1 Sobha on St Marks Road, Moglu can be contacted on 49527158. seat