ISLAND THINKING

residency and exhibitión project

artists invited:

JAKOB KUDSK STEENSEN, REGINA DE MIGUEL AND PAUL ROSERO CONTRERAS

Curated By Irene Campolmi and Àngels Miralda

The metaphor of the island has been a fecund source of inspiration across many domains, from More’s Utopia to Darwin’s evolutionary theory. The title “island thinking” proposes a reflection on the pulse of keeping alive natural ecosystems, in their uniqueness of being entirely ‘isolated’ from the continental mainland. On the other hand, it addresses the need to rearrange new boundaries in a socio-political environment that seems to increasingly ‘isolate’ forms of being and thinking, preventing forms of communication and interaction between species.

The residency will be a research period to view these aspects – and not only – through the process-oriented lens of ecology. We are interested in exploring the conceptual limits of islandness and look at the island as a metaphor that can simplify complex structures and frame the unbounded. We are interested in applying the metaphor of ‘island thinking’ to the current geopolitical situation, which is penetrating the whole world. The isolationist and increasingly polarized politics of current forms of geopolitical nationalism, which denies the plurality of ‘life diversities’, end up reflecting the way we approach the preservation of the diversity of the natural ecosystem.

The residency’s objective is to investigate aspects and issues of the many ecologies that co-exist in the geographical context of the Azores’ archipelago, placing particular attention to the politics and the ethics of the being and coexisting in the ecosystem of the islands.

Campolmi and Miralda have invited three internationally renowned artists – Jakob Kudsk Steensen (Denmark/USA), Paul Rosero Contreras (Ecuador) and Regina de Miguel (Spain/Germany) – with whom they have worked in the past. The invited artists will use the residency as a means to explore and investigate aspects related to their research including technology, politics, and ethics about natural ecosystems; de-colonial thought and society of the Azores Islands; preservation of underwater species of plants and animals, currently threatened by violent and repeated actions from mine companies.

The artists will take as their point of departure the importance of the island’s geographical location in the history of the Atlantic.

At the end of the residency, the artists will present their work in an homonymous exhibition ‘Island Thinking’ at the Museum Angra do Heroismo. The exhibition is accompanied by a public program of film screenings, talks, and performative walks during the weekend of September 27/28.

taken from (https://www.reactcontemporary.com/2019-edition-1)