"The world of supermodernity does not exactly match the one in which we believe we live, for we live in a world that we have not yet learned to look at. We have to relearn to think about space," writes Marc Augé (Augé, Marc. Non-Places Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. Translated by John Howe. London, New York, Verso, 1995). The proliferation of “non-places” – anonymous spaces without relations or history in the sense that the anthropologist gives them – is a characteristic of the contemporary world. Supermarkets, freeways, parking areas, “mammoth” administrative complexes, hotel chains and international airports are characteristic of our contemporaneity, which turns the whole planet into a world of common references.
The space in which we move, through the proliferation of transport and communication networks, and the overabundance and broadcast dissemination of information and images, organizes the planet into one entity to which all of its inhabitants may refer and are conscious of belonging to. In this society, one marked by an excessive acceleration of time and a contraction of space, the appearance of these non-places is responsible to a large degree for solitude among the mass. How may oases of humanity be constructed in order to resist the desiccation of human relationships in the desertification of liberalism, and to escape from the growth in inequalities? Because contemporary art essentially asks questions about our lives, preconceptions, existence itself, artists today are reflecting this worrying situation by developing universes that in their own way denounce the globalized, characterless decor that is spreading through our lives.
Whether as mirrors of socio-political preoccupations, places of memory, possible futures or ironic critiques of virtual realities, the installations in this exhibition are an exploration of both mental and real space, of the imagination and the virtual, inviting us to look at topical issues such as changing habits, utopias, ecology in another light and to question the norms.
Pier Giorgio De Pinto, Guillaume Estoppey, Pascale Favre, Joëlle Flumet, Luca Frei, Sebastien Mettraux, Yves Netzhammer, Tobias Nussbaumer, Camille Scherrer, Jerôme Stettler.
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Supported by:
- Città di Bellinzona
- Repubblica e Cantone Ticino - Fondo Swisslos
- Prohelvetia
- Comune di Yverdon-les-Bains
- AMB
- Percentuale Migros
- Canton de Vaud
- Canton de Genève
- Fondazione Oertli
