Ecoscape

Opening: 21 November, 20.00 hrs

From 21 November to 11 January TENT. presents the exhibition Ecoscape. The current social engagement with environmental issues has developed into a confusing debate in which good appears to do evil, and the truth is sometimes a lie. Can the dividing line between the environmentally friendly and environmentally polluting be drawn so accurately? Ecoscape brings together a number of artists whose work places them in a critical position in the current debate on how we interact with our habitat.

In the computer animation Evolizer, filmmaker Jan van Nuenen sketches an image of evolution that has got out of hand. Robot-like figures move through a futuristic, colourless cityscape. Van Nuenen builds computer animations from fragments of visual material found on the Internet. He processes the material into experimental films in which landscapes, people and machines proliferate, transform and mutate at a rapid rate. For the installation Psilotum Nudum, Arjen van Krieken uses discarded materials, the material consequences of our current consumer society. He combines car parts, moped frames and discarded household materials in an associative way to make sculptures that appear to take on a life of their own. Frank Bruggeman is fascinated by the way in which people relate to nature. He analyses living environments and presents his findings in an entirely personal system of classification. In his installation Natureobject #1 he combines bright blue gardening equipment with dried and living plants. Inspired by a poem by the Russian poet Fyodor Tiutchev, Ine Lamers captured the natural surroundings and edges of towns near the Ural Mountains in a series of evocative photos. This area is known for the sweeping industrialization and the economic reform of the countryside during communism. Ine Lamers' large photographs show an uncertain reality in which the industrial and the natural appear to merge into one another and the decline of nature also contains beauty. In the photo series Nature Illusions by Beatrice Jansen, real nature is increasingly being replaced by the artificial: a radio mast with the appearance of a tree and a painted desert landscape intended to brighten up an inner courtyard. The experience of nature becomes a consumable, which has nothing to do with the original nature. Tom Mosman and Margriet Essink have been working together under the name Duotuin since 1990. Both are visual artists and horticulturists. They argue that every garden design is in fact a reflection of a social topicality. The installation Rotterdam 2053 refers to the disastrous floods of 1953. The rising sea level and increasing amount of river water may make habitation in the future only possible in some floating form. The Multiscape sculptures of Pim Palsgraaf possess a sinister beauty. Foxes, deer and other stuffed animals bear an industrialized cityscape on their backs or clamber out of one. The soft fur and strong colours of the animals contrast with the greyness and rigid form of the urban structure. In the fictitious world of Erik Sep there is no town and country planning; he builds miniature cities, towers of Lego, iron and melted plastic thus creating an organically growing city. Favelatower is a miniature slum dwelling for the 21st century. Just as in the real 'favelas', the lack of space and technical constraints lead to ingenious solutions. What kind of relationship do people have with their urban environment? Is there such a thing as individual space or is everything prescribed from above? Aletta de Jong tries to find an answer to these questions. In the photo series Concrete Food, De Jong shows the way in which people fit greenery into their environment. The work of artist Toine Klaassen revolves around the recycling of found materials. His Laboratory for Contemporary Archaeology is the basis for a series of workshops for students and schoolchildren.

TENT. Events Friday 21 November, 20.00 h: opening of the exhibition Ecoscape Friday 21 November, 23.00 h: Afterparty TENT. @ De Camping (Hartmansstraat 18A) with DJs FNNNN. Thursday 11 December, 20.00 h: Het Ecomotief. Is sustainability actually tenable in art? Artists and architects join the debate. With a.o. Lenny Oosterwijk/Raoul Deleo (ILAND), 2012 Architecten. Thursday 8 January 2009, 20.00 h: Green Light. Ecoshow with green resolutions, spoken columns and presentations. With event master Baschz.

Ecoscape

Künstler: Ine Lamers, Pim Palsgraaf, Jan van Nuenen, Aletta de Jong, Frank Bruggeman, Beatrice Jansen, Erik Sep, Arjen van Krieken, Duotuin