“NICKEL, NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT"
Nickel has been peeled off from its naming (stainless steel) and become a kind of element, an object, which means nickel is much more than a restored metal. No matter how close it is to us, in the coach of the high-speed rail, or at the two sides of the pedestrian overpass, we can see and touch it. Or how far it is away from us, coming from the Cambrian period of 400 million years ago. However, we are still not 100% confident to say that we have understood it and its environment. Nickel has still been waiting for us to explore outside of the environment we are familiar with. Being an object, Nickel and nature have always been in the process of being understood.
THE KEYWORD HERE IS "ONGOING"
In this theme, time is open, with no limits, borders, nor connections to culture or national boundaries. It is a way to enter the present, and face what is being produced in the present. The questions posed by the topic offer everyone a way to get involved with the juncture we find ourselves at. The history of this sentence continues to grow, or rather our era has grown closer to this sentence. The meaning of this sentence is alive, and unstable– there is ambiguity to it (this is the nature of growth itself), allowing each person to find their own way into it. What is stable and definitive? Only death is truly definitive.
When an artist is making work that will later be seen as part of a specific era, the work does necessarily not belong to that time yet; other artists working at the same time may not belong to the same era. Artists and curators can break down the boundaries between time periods. I believe this is my understanding of the theme.
My most recent work is concerned with a geological conception of time.
There are a few key points about this idea that fascinate me: before the field of geology emerged, humankind only had the concept of geography, which was just the objective knowledge of the surface of the earth. The concept of the “earth” as a thing is something that people extrapolated from astronomy. People could only gain new knowledge once they let go of their closely held beliefs.
Geology brings with it a new means of understanding. It is vertically oriented, and we must use terms like fracture, layer, chance, and thickness to understand it. This verticality is different from other forms of knowledge, creating new tensions and contradictory relationships to analyze.
Geology brings about a geological concept of time, no longer referring to the scale of the human lifespan to understand everything.
The relationship between the vertical stack, different layers, and the surface creates a new process of individuation. For example: the biological human meets the non-human in the form of the cellphone, while the material of the phone’s microchip originates from 400 million years ago. Here, different times can coexist and interact.
This brings us towards a new geopolitics. Traditional ideas about states and sovereignty are no longer applicable.
How does my practice in my studio directly approach this? I am working with the
relationship between geological energy resources, minerals, steel, productivity and
output.
There are connecting principles running through all of my recent art: Geology - Surface -Geopolitics – Man.
When an artist is making work that will later be seen as part of a specific era, the work does necessarily not belong to that time yet; other artists working at the same time may not belong to the same era. Artists and curators can break down the boundaries between time periods. I believe this is my understanding of the theme.
My most recent work is concerned with a geological conception of time.
There are a few key points about this idea that fascinate me: before the field of geology emerged, humankind only had the concept of geography, which was just the objective knowledge of the surface of the earth. The concept of the “earth” as a thing is something that people extrapolated from astronomy. People could only gain new knowledge once they let go of their closely held beliefs.
Geology brings with it a new means of understanding. It is vertically oriented, and we must use terms like fracture, layer, chance, and thickness to understand it. This verticality is different from other forms of knowledge, creating new tensions and contradictory relationships to analyze.
Geology brings about a geological concept of time, no longer referring to the scale of the human lifespan to understand everything.
The relationship between the vertical stack, different layers, and the surface creates a new process of individuation. For example: the biological human meets the non-human in the form of the cellphone, while the material of the phone’s microchip originates from 400 million years ago. Here, different times can coexist and interact.
This brings us towards a new geopolitics. Traditional ideas about states and sovereignty are no longer applicable.
How does my practice in my studio directly approach this? I am working with the
relationship between geological energy resources, minerals, steel, productivity and
output.
There are connecting principles running through all of my recent art: Geology - Surface -Geopolitics – Man.