The Garden of Lost Species & Words
Sunday Kitchen
The Garden of Lost Species & Words is an exhibition that intervenes in our shared experiences, cutting through the present moment: the vanishing species from the Earth
and our collective memory. This exhibit brings together artists who create a space of attunement, cultivating relational spaces with nature through different sensorial languages and summoning the already absent or vanishing species.
"And You May Find Yourself Living in an Age of Mass Extinction," the chapter in All Art is Ecological, ominously suggests how human activity has irrevocably altered life on Earth, ushering a new epoch as our temporal companion. In our times marked by the erasure that have increasingly become the norm, how can we navigate our present and live with each other, and the non-human beings? As we shuttle between the series of climate events unfolding at an ungraspable scale, and the efforts to change or slow down the process, Can art serve as a catalyst to bring perspectives and meanings in generative ways?
Driven by a shared interest to acknowledge the rapidly declining environment, the exhibit draws from artists who ground their concerns into their practice. The artists, poets, and dancers in this exhibition take on roles akin to translators, priests, and collaborators and facilitate a space for “tuning”. Rather than posing answers, they facilitate our sensory understanding of the yet intangible in the environment. Poetics can name what is emerging but yet present, artists draw on animistic collaboration with roots and moss, and commune with plants through sound waves. They activate our senses, bring the invisible to the fore, and activate the spaces in-between to foster a deeper sense of kinship.
If the garden, by definition, is a place for cultivating and caring for plant species, the Garden of Lost Species & Words aims to cultivate a space for exploring our interconnectedness, and the intrinsic belonging to our non-human kin. The exhibit further challenges traditional modes of taxonomy between nature and culture, while acknowledging the interconnectedness between humans and other living beings.
The Garden of Lost Words and Species
Visual and Sound Art Exhibit
Artists: Shin Yu Pai, Yoko Ono, Rob Rhee, JJ Jungim Rose (TBD)
Songs of Plants, Tender Machines
A series of performances, sound art, and deep listening
