Exhibition "The Coming World:
Ecology as a New Policy. 2030–2100"

Participants: Kim Abeles, John Akomfra, Elin Mar Aeyen Wister, Turi Vrones, Ben Woodard, Gints Gabrans, The Nest group, Karel Dujardin, Helge Jordaheim, Maurizio Cattelan, Sergey Kishchenko, Le Corbusier, Lawrence Leck, Maybridge Maybridge, Michael Mathews, Alexander Obrazumov, Dan Perzhovsky, Leah Perzhovsky, Patricia Pichchinini, Anastasia Potemkina, Salomon van Reusdal, Sasha Poflepp, Lor Pruvo, John Rafman, Pamela Rosencrantz, Martha Rosler, Boryana Ross and Oleg Mavromatti, Tomana Salaseno, Tomana Salaseno Denis Sinyakov, Victor Skersis, Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, Hay den Fowler, James Ferraro, Bill Fontana, Hans Haake, Juan Yoon Ping, Susan Schupply, Gerry Noise, Doug Aitken, Max Ernst, Mella Yarsma, Allora & Calzadilla, Critical Art Ensemble, Driessens & Verstappen, finger, Numen / For Use, Rimini Protokoll, Studio Drift and Wooloo.

Large-scale exhibition project “The World to Come: Ecology as a New Policy. 2030–2100 ”will unite historical and new works of more than 50 authors from Russia and the whole world and will occupy the entire space of the Museum. The project is addressed to the future, more precisely, to the future - the future, which is in development and in which the environmental agenda will become one of the key political issues.

The time period indicated in the name of the exhibition refers to two dates from the field of popular science and classics of science fiction. Thus, according to many forecasts (in particular, the well-known ecologist and demographer Paul Erlich), the date of the exhaustion of world oil reserves and, accordingly, the end of the oil age was 2030. On the other hand, in the year 2100, the famous science fiction writer Arthur Clark dated in the 1960s the possibility of humanity populating other star worlds and achieving immortality. Thus, the exhibition refers to a short period in the future when people have to come to terms with the fact that “we have no other planet” (the famous slogan of ecologists “there’s no planet B”) - until the imaginary moment when the development of technology will colonize other worlds possible. Therefore, on the one hand, we are talking about a speculative future, the chronological framework of which is outlined by forecasts that have lost relevance and reflect the entire “instability” of our knowledge about it. At the same time, we proceed from a “performative” understanding of the future, which is being constructed in the present tense and depends on our actions now. As TJ Demos, a theorist and art critic, noted in an article entitled “Art After Nature” (2012), “just as nature is no longer perceived as a primordial, pure, separate from man sphere, so the autonomy of art in the face of environmental disaster seems more and more doubtful. "

The "Coming World" revolves around two topics - environmental protection and an expanded understanding of ecology. The first insists that the issues of climate change, the extinction of biological species, pollution, renewable natural resources, overpopulation, etc. can no longer be perceived as secondary and insignificant and should be crucial in everyday politics: production, consumption, education and leisure. In turn, an expanded understanding of ecology implies a close relationship of biological, technological, social and political ecosystems. In this case, ecology is understood as the continuous interaction of man, inanimate nature and other biological species, that is, performatively, as "ecology in action". This allows us to think of nature not only in abstract, but also in specific, active and interdependent categories - through everyday interaction with it.

The first project of the “Coming World” will be the premiere of the six-channel video installation of John Akomfra “Purple” (June 15 - November 17). By combining archived film footage and new filming from different continents, the British artist created an impressive video saga about global climate change and its implications for humanity and the biodiversity of the planet.

The exhibition will feature a number of historical works that outline milestones in the relationship between art and nature, from tapestries of the 16th century, where for the first time nature was seen beyond human control, to the beginning of the landscape genre in Dutch painting of the 17th century and the development of “organic culture” in Russian avant-garde to works land art, which arose in 1969, when natural materials as such became a full-fledged medium of contemporary art. Half a century ago, the development of land art and environmentalism coincided with a growing public interest in environmental protection, which led to the birth of environmental policy at the state and civil levels. For the same half a century, art has gone through a complex history of relations with ecology - from the objectification of nature to understanding it as a system (for example, in the installation “Circulation” by Hans Haacke), from the irony about ecoritics (as in “Minute of Breath for the Environment” group “Nest”) to practical suggestions for real life in the projects of the Danish Wooloo team.

Along with genuine evidence of recent man-made disasters (Alan Secula’s Black Tide / Marea Negra series) or criminal omissions about them (Susan Schupply’s Slow Decay installation), the exhibition features projects created with the participation of animals as agents of a new relationship and a new paradigm of coexistence nature, man and non-human species (Thomas Saraceno, Hayden Fowler), as well as various future scenarios related to scientific predictions and theories.

“The World to Come” allows us to recognize the environmental imbalance that has been created for the most part by human activities and which many of us try not to notice due to its abstractly huge scale and impersonal-far dimension. Offering to meet him face to face, the exhibition, on the one hand, works with this crowding out, revealing its symptoms at different stages of anxiety or denial, and at the same time offers a kind of study and treatment of our common “ecotrauma”. And although environmental problems, as a rule, are related to real life and political practice, art is a unique “vehicle” in this regard. Art plays a role in the production of images charged with the future, and its agents are able to detect non-obvious connections, combine different types of knowledge, interests and competencies, thereby embodying an ecological way of thinking. In the end, it is the environmental agenda in the modern world that is the most universal, because only it is able to unite people all over the world, allowing them to experience a tiny personal action as a political one.

The exhibition is organized in dialogue with artists and activists and rethinks the exhibition practice itself in an ecological way. In particular, the architecture of the exhibition is based on the principle of processing architectural structures from previous expositions. In an effort to reduce the carbon footprint left by the exhibition, the curators refused to transport works where it was possible, and part of the work was recreated according to the instructions of the artists (Martha Rosler, Tita Salina). 14 works will be created specifically for the exhibition and 10 works are new versions of existing works. Some of them were created in direct cooperation with local expert communities - bee breeders, jellyfish researchers, water purification specialists, etc. Some projects are related to art strategies at the intersection with social action - for example, the Wooloo group Human Hotel community open for participation )www.humanhotel.com). Responsibly approaching printed materials, the project team refused to print booklets, but a digital catalog, mobile and audio guides, as well as a video dictionary of eco-terms in Russian in sign language developed by the inclusive department of the Museum were prepared for the exhibition.

As part of the Garage Atrium Commissions program, the Museum’s Atrium will present a new work by Chinese artist Huang Yun Ping, “American Cuisine and Chinese Cockroaches. 1959–2019 ”, referring to the famous“ kitchen debate ”between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev at the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959. Among the large-scale immersive installations presented at the "Coming World" will be the "Garden" of Dag Aitken, WIN>

At the opening of the “Coming World” as part of the Garage Live program, a website-specific performance by the Norwegian artist Turi Vrones will take place. In addition, the emphasis on performative works inside the exposition (Hayden Fowler, Mella Yarsma) is intended to convey to the viewer a more felt sense of the world, the links between human and natural.

The exhibition was organized by Snezhana Krasteva and Ekaterina Lazareva, curators of the Garage Museum

The installation of John Acomfra “Purple” was commissioned by the Barbican Gallery (London) in conjunction with the Museum of Paintings (Umea, Sweden), the TBA21 Academy (Vienna), the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), the Berardo Museum of Collection (Lisbon) and the Garage Museum of Modern Art.

The exhibition “The World to Come: Ecology as a New Policy. 2030–2100 ”was organized with the support of the Embassy of Australia, the Embassy of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Embassy of the Kingdom of Norway and the French Institute at the Embassy of France in Russia.

The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art thanks HTC Vive for helping organize Hayden Fowler’s “Together Again” performance.