The opposition between nature and culture, non-humans and humans has been one of our long-established cultural assumptions. It orchestrates our actions and strategic decisions. Whether we approach it through romanticizing attitudes like admiration and idealization of nature, whether through caring for and protection of the world around us, or through conquest and transformation of environments, our approach presumes the active position of humans and the passive role of nature. However, if we take a closer look at archival documents and media, it is obvious that nature has always been a powerful, forceful actor in history, and that humans are but one species among the many that inhabit this planet.

This exhibition takes a critical look at the power of media, its capacity to mobilize, and its explanatory authority. It focuses on the history of ecological consciousness and on how images inform the way we think about human and more-than-human relations. We may not be able to transcend our human thinking in our attempts to understand the non-human, but we may be able to invent new expressive languages and ideas about how we can co-exist and co-create.

To the exhibition