Slowly, Extinction
Collaboration with Te Palandjian.
320 x 560 x 40 cm; Heat-treated London Plane trees, steel, glass, aluminum, breeze blocks
320 x 560 x 40 cm; Heat-treated London Plane trees, steel, glass, aluminum, breeze blocks
Exhibition: and you would have to believe it, Copeland Gallery Peckkam, London (UK). 2024
Working in collaboration for the first time, Nele and Te brought together their research on material, recontextualization, and landscape (specifically solar farms, greenhouses, the desert, excavation sites). Two installations were created. For each installation, the artists work using a communicative two-step method, with one responding to the sculpture that the other provides.
"In 'Slowly, Extinction', Nele deconstructs the greenhouse into a single plane, reflecting on their history of rupture. Greenhouses manipulate heat, humidity, and airflow to sustain plants, often from other cultures. In doing so, these plants are situated as fragile beings in need of nurturing. Te responds to Nele’s greenhouse as a mechanism that can imitate a diversity of environments, and characteristically, amplifies heat. Underneath the glass, Te positions heat-treated plane tree sections as a simulacra for the Southern Utah desert environment, its fauna in a state of slow death under a barely tolerable sun."
"In 'Slowly, Extinction', Nele deconstructs the greenhouse into a single plane, reflecting on their history of rupture. Greenhouses manipulate heat, humidity, and airflow to sustain plants, often from other cultures. In doing so, these plants are situated as fragile beings in need of nurturing. Te responds to Nele’s greenhouse as a mechanism that can imitate a diversity of environments, and characteristically, amplifies heat. Underneath the glass, Te positions heat-treated plane tree sections as a simulacra for the Southern Utah desert environment, its fauna in a state of slow death under a barely tolerable sun."