The concept of "multispecies clouds" was first developed by anthropologist Celia Lowe, who compared the Indonesian avian influenza epidemic to a "multispecies cloud" and examined how strains and species are linked to the spread of pandemics in Indonesia and across borders She examines how strains and species are integrated with Indonesian and cross-border epidemic transmission, biosecurity, and national politics. The abstract "cloud" here refers to a multi-species network of constraints and possibilities that encompasses as yet unspecified human and non-human, social and biological factors.
> Rometty Costales, American Species, black and white photographic print, mounted on aluminum and plywood (6 panels), 20 × 30 cm, 2013.
The group exhibition Multispecies Ethnography, opening in late 2022 at Beijing's Mechelon Art Center, brings together artworks with the problematic awareness of Multispecies Ethnography in a way that distinguishes the "self" from the "other". "In this way, the energy of art is gathered to clearly point out the warning brought by zoonosis or nature crisis: it is not only necessary to study the relationship between "man and man", but also to see the relationship between "man and nature". The relationship between human beings and nature should be examined as well. It is important to examine the survival of multiple species that are hidden in the shadows of human-centered life, to reflect on our own behavior, and to sort out the dense symbiotic relationship between humans and other life forms. In this way, we can better understand social and biological networks and build a special solidarity to deal with the common challenges of the global era.
When the eyes turn to the artworks in this exhibition, the artist, as a combination of ethnographic researcher and shaman, refers to another complex dynamic structure - art is not a vacuum, its formation and the perceptions and judgments associated with it are always intertwined with various biological relationships, politics, and social culture. The exhibition that houses these images, poetry and politics, as a medium of communication, concentrates and churns these ambiguous states of change, becoming a place to anticipate the future through creative figurative cases. In between, new knowledge about human history, humanities, natural history and biological history is being generated in a non-linearly developing system of understanding.
> Patricia Dominguez, "Botanical Matrix", video installation, 21 minutes 12 seconds, 2021-2022
The exhibition narrative is divided into four sections: "Clouds", "'Mycelium Man", "Symbiotic Poetics" and "Plurality, Solidarity and Poetics". The live space, however, is not rigidly divided by these four sections. Perhaps this is simply out of consideration for the total duration of the images in the same space and the exhibition space, or perhaps to correspond to the "cloud" of multiple universes, creating such a viewing experience without forced guidance. The completed "closed" works of artists with different geographical and cultural backgrounds meet each other in the space, loosening up at their respective edges and thus having the opportunity to reorganize.
The opening of the exhibition reveals the dangerous and crazy darkness under the romantic imagination of "clouds". In the word "explosion" that keeps appearing between the lines, a huge mushroom cloud grows to a height of more than 13,000 meters in a flash, with a totem pole-like stalk and a living creature-like cap, and the white top tumbles, boils and rises with a hissing sound. In "Bloom" and "Bloom, Explosion", the bloom of a cactus flower is juxtaposed with a rapid explosion (Boom) - the history of mankind and nature have been intertwined from the very beginning and have progressed hand in hand. In the corner of the second floor gallery, a small cluster of Night Mushroom Colon, made up of nightlights and switch plugs, is hidden from view, forming a small narrative loop with several works on the first floor.
> Pamela Rosenkranz, Healer Skin (Riverbank), origami skin, paper, 28 × 5 cm, 2021
Cactus, tortoise bamboos, African artemisia, agave, plants are important landing places for "clouds". Plants are borders and create new borders; they compose and are changing the existing borders. In the video What Does it Take? (To Win Your Love For Me), the turtleback bamboo takes on a new form in a foreign land that has inherited a colonialist discipline. At the same time, these commodified bamboos create landscapes that open up a space of relaxation and attachment for humans. Adjacent to "Explosion, Bloom," "Americanas" is a series of black-and-white photographs of agave. The photos show a plant that dies after flowering and then enters a long process of decomposition, looking more like a human in disguise. The "lifeless" agave roams the Andes, giving birth to new "life" in the "barren", naturally linked to shamanic beliefs, blurring the distinction between magic and objective reality The distinction between magic and objective reality, between living beings and dead things.
> Liu Window, Untitled (Lime Green) No. 1, high-temperature oxidation of bronze and chemical pigments, 63 × 67 × 147 cm, 2016
Spirit is dependent on matter, and the mysticism of the invisible lends itself to the biological existence of the tangible world. At the same time, this relationship between the human and the non-human in turn affects the human connection. Both the growing and the many landscapes that are judged dead and are disappearing are not limited to the social roles and meanings assigned by humans. They are active in themselves, mutually nurturing with human activity, and full of initiative in shaping and composing networks of social relations.
When the skin of the snake-like robot on the transparent base of Anamazon (Prayer Growth) is illuminated by LED lights, the complex imagery of the snake unfolds. In different cultures, the snake has a special meaning. From the Ouroboros, an ancient mythological symbol of infinity, the Rod of Asclepius, a symbol of medicine and health, and the intertwined tails of Fuxi and Nuwa, a symbol of the origin of life, to the sky and the cave in the exhibition Eagle and Serpent, the absurdity of Trampoline Leg Rattlesnake, and the mystery of the snake. Leg Rattlesnake", the "symbiotic" reality to which the absurd situation of "Trampoline Leg Rattlesnake" refers, the scale of tens of thousands of years, and the intimate interaction with the work in the present second, together form the model of the relationship between humans and animals explored in the exhibition. The first lecture of the exhibition's public project "meshwork", "Burmese pythons, from wartime gourmets to environmental sentinels", also provides a detailed case study of the anthropologist's personal experience in this regard.
> Lorina Caicedo & David de Rosas, left: Explosion, Bloom, collage, 16.8 × 26.7 cm, 2020; right: Bloom, Explosion, collage, 26.7 × 36.8 cm, 2020
In addition, in his review of the book "The Virus Museum," Wang Xiyin, the keynote speaker of "Burmese Python," says, "The exploration of shamanic thought and the preparation for epidemics are inseparable from imagination. 'Imagination' involves the formation of human cognition, the origins of power relations, the development of art and technology, and the ecology of human and nonhuman relations." The imagination of the invisible world in ritual, the imagination of the colonial period, the imagination of the unknown future and the mysterious universe, and the imagination of an "inhuman" experience are spread over the four chapters of the exhibition. Under the guidance of the works, the viewer seems to be able to let go of some of his or her usual sight and untie his or her already shaped mind. As a creature living on land, one imagines how the world is viewed from the perspective of plants, flora and animals; how species in complex networks actually cope with uncertain normality and collaborate to survive.
"The universal law. Nothing is plundered, nothing is demolished, nothing is cut up in its life and left in blood on the jungle floor."
- From the poem "Ins and Outs of the ForestRivers" by Nathaniel Tarn
> Yuli Oro, Learning from African Artemisia, three-channel image, acrylic, oil on board, size depending on space, 14 min 18 sec, 2019-2020
It is in the footnote of the last piece of the collection of poems with the same title, Inside and Outside the Forest River, that we learn that the friend who went to the forest with Tarn on the journey to write this collection of poems unfortunately died. It was Tarn, who was over eighty years old, who took his friend's body away from the forest. "At last, the forest wraps itself tightly, stops to admire itself, and, afterwards, rests. Marveling at its own beauty, it gives its consent to the earth that it should go on, that it should live, and that its biological ark does the same."
Article Source:艺术与设计
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