New exhibition curated by Nico Carpentier raises questions about how we perceive our environment
New exhibition curated by Nico Carpentier raises questions about how we perceive our environment
As one of the outcomes of our Mistra research project, Nico Carpentier (Department of Media Studies) is curating (together with Daniel Urey and Emilia Rosenqvist) the exhibition Moulding Nature – Discursive Struggles Over the Environment at Fargfabriken arts center in Stockholm.
The exhibition runs from 26 August to 26 November.
Fargfabriken arts center in Stockholm says about the exhibition:
Moulding Nature raises questions about how we perceive our environment. In video works, collages, photos and installations, artists and other participants explore how different discourses* affect the way we give meaning to nature and the role of mankind in it. Discourses that often are in conflict with each other and compete for space, sometimes even fight each other.
The exhibition is part of a project on environmental communication where researchers have identified voices, positions and ideologies that can be linked to the discussion about nature and the environment. These are illustrated through an ideological map developed by Nico Carpentier (with a design by Irene Straccuzzi), which, together with selected works of art, gives a multifaceted and deepened picture of the struggle about how the world around us can be interpreted.
A large part of the visual material in the exhibition has been produced through co-creative activities, where people from different geographical and social contexts participated. The result is a number of installations that highlight the many layers of interpretations, voices and conflicts of interest that characterize landscapes, forestry, gardens and urban environments.
* Discourse can be described as “a filter” that affects how the conversation is conducted and how different phenomena are perceived within an area. From a social sciences perspective our relationship to reality is maintained or controlled through various discourses. For example, if you believe in God and part of a religious discourse, you perceive the world in a different way than someone who is an atheist and part of an atheistic discourse.
The exhibition is part of the research program Mistra Environmental Communication, and more specific the program for research concerning media and arts, lead by Nico Carpentier, Extraordinary professor at Culture and Communication Research Center, Charles University in Prague.
Färgfabriken has initiated several co-creative activities within the program based on different themes; garden, how nature is “silenced” and rendered pictures as desinformation about the future. These activities took place at different locations in the country in collaboration with Skellefteå konsthall, Virserums konsthall, Gaaltje Saemien Museume in Östersund, Färgfabriken’s Youth Council and a group of architects. The exhibition Moulding Nature is created from results of the research and material from the co-creative activities together with selected artworks.
More about the MISTRA Environmental Communication (MEC) Research Programme
The MISTRA Environmental Communication (MEC) Research Programme is a four-year research project, based in Sweden and implemented by an international consortium, which includes the Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University. MEC's overarching aim is to reframe Swedish environmental communication, i.e., to mainstream an advanced and inclusive understanding of environmental communication in research, policy and practice such that it can effectively underpin and foster sustainability transformations. MEC draws on a transdisciplinary approach that involves researchers from a range of disciplinary backgrounds as well as non-academic partners representing crucial actors in wider society to harness existing thinking, co-develop new insights and approaches and translate these into communication practice.
