Nature as Infrastructure
Nature as Infrastructure - A proposition by The Winter Office
From 14. November to 12. December, 2020
Detailed programme bellow or visit thewinteroffice.net
Originally invited to produce an exhibition and public program in Adelaide, in parallel with the exhibition "Wilfrid Almendra - So Much Depends Upon a Red Wheel Barrow" at Atlantis Lumière in the frame of Manifesta 13 - Les Parallèles du Sud, The Winter Office developed a month-long programme of talks, films, artworks and projects from THE WINTER OFFICE and invited artists.
Nature as Infrastructure encapsulates the research interests and theoretical underpinnings of The Winter Office, focusing primarily on the relationship between nature, humans and the urban environment. These are at the same time informed by the diverse creative contexts surrounding the initiatives and projects led by the group’s collaboration with SixtyEight Art Institute and Really Simple Syndication Press, both based in Copenhagen.
More specifically, through new artistic connections and contexts, the programme examines how we can re-establish a new connection to nature, rethink a renewal of society, and inspire the design of future public spaces by asking how to reintroduce nature into cities. The initiative presents films, ideas, and conversations from a number of artists and thinkers engaging with the various preoccupations of the group, and examines how the concept of 'Nature as infrastructure' is treated through artistic strategies.
All these facets considered, the Nature As Infrastructure: A Proposition by The Winter Office programme aims to imagine a new role for Nature, not only as infrastructure, but also as a catalyst to a discussion on the power of creativity to act as a disaster mitigator. Arguing instead for the distributive potential of an emerging consultant framework led by artists, and that any regeneration project demands new ways of imagining and driving architecture, landscape design, art, and ‘communities of practice’ to form around solutions.
Nature as Infrastructure took place from 14 November to 12 December 2020 and included:
A film program :
Half Man / Half Monster, by Raul Baltazar ; G.R.A.C.E, by The Winter Office; "Er de jord de her? De er Jord" (Is it soil this thing? It's soil), by Ingrid Book & Carina Hedén; SEARCHING FOR NIGEL, by Filip Vest ;"We're all motherfuckers", by Madeleine Andersson ; and Areyouready.tv, by Frans Jacobi and Gitte Sætre.
A selection of artworks :
The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth, by Raul Baltazar; Rewildering Holographic Weeds, No. 2, by THE WINTER OFFICE; Fire season, a poem by David Lau; and search for the (in)audible realm / and you responded: a proposal by an artist who writes, by Amara Higuera Hopping.
Conversations around a selection of books :
Jeanne Betak about A New Nature by Anders Abraham; Gilles Clément and the editorial team of Gardens, Landscape and Nature’s Genius, by Gilles Clément ; The Antilibrary about Cerro Point Blanco, by Lehman Brothers; and Aurélien Potier, Won-Jin Choi and Sophie T. Lvoff about No Safe Place by Peter Brandt, on the invitation of Aurélia Defrance.
And a series of conversations which will stay available online on Bruise:
Regarding Weeds – A Conversation with Artist / Architect Gitte Juul; A Conversation with Anja Franke on the SOIL Exhibition at SixtyEight Art Institute, Beauty Instead of Ashes / Launching the Alain Locke Institute by Jeffrey C. Stewart; and The Lost Decade, by Hugo Hopping / Conversations with Laure Jaumouillé, Abdessamad El Montassir and Cédric Fauq, on the invitation of Aurélia Defrance.
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This Virtual Programme has been Organized and Curated by
Hugo Hopping in close collaboration with Lise Grüner Bertelsen, Camilo Montoya, and Johanna Ferrer Guldager of THE WINTER OFFICE; and through the generous support of Wilfrid Almendra and Aurélia Defrance for Adélaïde and Bruise Magazine; and through an extended collaboration with Christopher Sand-Iversen and Katie Mcdougall of SixtyEight Art Institute; and Céline Kopp of Triangle France - Astérides.
About The Winter Office
THE WINTER OFFICE is an artistic work group consisting of artists, curators, architects, designers and social scientists founded in 2010 by the American artist Hugo Hopping and the Danish architect/urban planner Johanna Ferrer Guldager.
THE WINTER OFFICE is involved with various initiatives that express themselves both in art and architecture; and in favor of new uses for social/urban planning and design. To this end, the group seeks challenges in the production of final objects, constructions, research and exhibitions to introduce non-ideal values of spatial justice to raise the quality of the built environment. The group is based in Copenhagen, Denmark.
About Adelaide
Adelaide is a space of exchange and experimentation, where tools and ideas are being shared, and where conversations happen. It is a space of activity, labor, traffic, and generosity. Adelaide is an artist’s run space founded in 2017 by Wilfrid Almendra in Marseille, France.
About Bruise
Bruise is an online publication space providing visibility for ideas, conversations, experiments, and projects generated outside of traditional exhibition spaces by artists and their associates in dialogue with Triangle - Astérides, centre d’art contemporain in Marseille.
Bruise is an experimental space in close contact with art in the making, reflecting art's radical power to open spaces for imagining new futures. Bruise is informed by a matrix of feminist and critical value systems, that borrows from a zine history, and seeks economies of difference and inclusion with a love for contact, listening ears, and the exchange of ideas.
Supported by Région Sud - Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and The Danish Arts Foundation. In collaboration with The Winter Office, Adelaide, Atlantis Lumière, and Triangle France - Astérides, in the frame of Manifesta 13 - Parallèles du Sud.
