„Climate
Dignity“ umfasst die Idee, dass alle Menschen das Recht haben, in einer Welt zu leben, in der ihre Gesundheit, ihre Freiheit
und ihre Lebensgrundlagen nicht durch den Klimawandel bedroht sind. Im Sinne der Klimagerechtigkeit gilt dies insbesondere
für diejenigen Personen, Gemeinschaften und Länder, die am stärksten vom Klimawandel betroffen sind oder wahrscheinlich betroffen
sein werden und daher besonders schutzbedürftig sind. Gleichzeitig betont Climate Dignity, dass die Folgen des vom Menschen
verursachten Klimawandels und der damit verbundene Verlust der Biodiversität nicht nur die Menschenwürde, sondern auch die
Natur gefährden. Das Konzept, das Climate Dignity zugrunde liegt, stellt die mehr-als-menschlichen Beziehungen in den Mittelpunkt
und betont die gegenseitige Abhängigkeit von Mensch und Natur: Die Würde der Natur zu verletzen bedeutet, die Menschenwürde
zu verletzen.
Diese Gruppenausstellung im Künstlerhaus Wien versteht „Climate Dignity“ als Aufruf zum Handeln.
Die von den teilnehmenden Künstlerinnen und Künstlern durchgeführten Recherchen und die daraus resultierenden Werke sollen
uns alle mit Wissen und Mut ausstatten, um der anhaltenden Zerstörung unserer Welt zu widerstehen.
Die folgenden
Künstler*innen und Kollektive sind vertreten und lehren und/oder forschen auch an der Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien:
Andreas Duscha, Ernst Logar, Shaken Grounds, Christoph Höschele.
Andreas Duscha,
Radenko Milak
COP
Shaken Grounds
Shaken Grounds, Shifting Skies
The PEEK-project
Shaken Grounds is represented at the exhibition by an intermedial installation
with a wall drawing, objects, painings and
video works
by Nikolaus Gansterer, Mariella Greil, Peter Kozek, and Lucie Strecker,
in collaboration with Victor Jaschke
and Werner Moebius.
With additional artistic and scientific contributions by Valerio Acocella, Arno Böhler,
Oscar Fernandez
Bellon, Helga Franza, Sabine Folie, Nicolas Freytag, Nicola Fornoni,
Sylvia Scheidl, and VestAndPage (Andrea Pagnes / Verena
Stenke).
“The geo-philosopher moves along the crest of turbulence,
on the shoulders of waves that envelop mind,
energy, and matter,
and that diffuse them into the atmosphere.” (Gilles Deleuze, 1993)
Even before the
Anthropocene, disruptive geological forces were compelling artists
to reflect on the fragility of existence and the origins
of their age. Such events raised
fundamental questions about where to ground reason when the conditions of life could
shift
so radically. Natural disasters—like the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in southern Italy
—have long served as focal points
for both scientific inquiry and artistic reflection.
According to the myth of Rome's founding, Aeneas entered
the underworld through
the trembling Phlegraean Fields—surrounded now by Europe’s largest illegal toxic dump—
to seek guidance
on where to settle after his long journey.
On the other hand, the major eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE was associated
with
the sudden threats posed by the Iron Age, a period marked by austerity and wars
that prompted a range of artistic responses.
Today, areas prone to seismic activity are
influencing artistic research and expression in a different way. While
such places once
connected people to a poly-temporal world view, they now bear the weight of new,
man-made pressures. Global
warming, groundwater extraction, resource mining,
clean energy technologies, and waste disposal are all increasing the strain
on the Earth’s crust,
resulting in human-accelerated earthquakes. This almost incomprehensible, yet undeniable
phenomenon
highlights the complexity of the ecological crisis, revealing disturbing
new entanglements between humanity and the environment.
The artist collective Shaken Grounds revisits the continental margins of southern Italy,
exploring the intersections
of natural seismic activity and anthropogenic environmental damage
through an interwoven mesh of artistic experiments. They
recognize that the trembling of the earth,
once regarded as one of Gaia’s natural forces, is now being driven by human interference
as well.
Art, as research and practice, excels in detecting and expressing the changing relationship
between humanity and
our evolving, technologically influenced, and highly damaged geological environment.
On April 11, 2025, 16:00–19:00
a "mini symposium" with short lectures, performance,
and audience discussion on the recording of geological, social, and
psychological tremors with
Arno Böhler (philosopher), Daniel Brandlechner (literary scholar), Nikolaus Gansterer (artist),
Mariella Greil (choreographer and dancer), Victor Jaschke (filmmaker),
Peter Kozek (artist), and Lucie Strecker (artist)
takes place.
Shaken Grounds is funded by PEEK program of the Austrian Science Fund Austria.
Ernst Logar,
Kinga Kiełczyńska
Everyday Fairy TaleThe exhibtion IMAGINE CLIMATE DIGNITY
is Co-curated by Barbara Hoeller and Simon Mraz.
A joint project of the Section for International Cultural Affairs
in the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, the Austrian Cultural Forums, and the Kuenstlerhaus Association.
See all
participating artists at
imagineclimatedignity.at/en/about
Christoph Höschele’s work is an experimental exploration of the catchment area of the Bílina River in Northern
Bohemia. He went on multi-day trips in the area to examine nature and visible human impact on it using film.
He used
the collected material to create a large-format video piece that, in a no-comments style, shows the manifestations of the
Bílina from source to delta.
