Contested Landscapes - Kunsthalle Mannheim

Contested Landscapes presented in the Kunsthalle Mannheim is part of From Where I Stand, the exhibition program I curated for the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie, and presents the following artists 👇

📷 1,2  Lisa Barnard The Canary and the Hammer, 2019 

📷 2,3  Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber China Express, 2021 

📷 3  Misha Vallejo Prut Secret Sarayaku, 2021 

📷 4 Awoiska van der Molen The Living Mountain, 2022 

📷 5 Aàdesokan Waste Identity: Bola Bola Living, 2020 @manqbt

📷 6 Rune Peitersen RAABJERG, 2022 

📷 7,8 Małgorzata Stankiewicz Viriditas XXI, 2022 

📷 8,9 Yan Wang Preston Forest, 2010–2017 

Images @miriamstanke 

📣 Contested Landscapes addresses the ecological challenges the world is facing today. For centuries, capitalist economies and imperialist forces have heavily taxed and manufactured the earth for their own benefit. Nature is seen as a resource for economic growth: its economic value carries more weight than its ecological value. How can we rebalance the relationship between humans and the environment so that future generations can benefit from sustainable alternatives? 

The selected artists take us to landscapes, from South America to the Baltic Sea, to show the effects of mineral extraction, waste management and marine pollution. Instead of observing topo- graphical transformations at a distance, they include local sources and histories to demonstrate the social and political forces at stake. 

To photograph a landscape is also to preserve an image of it and to make it part of a desired cultural identity. However, what rights do we have to
use planet Earth and only assign our values to it? 

@die_biennale @kunsthallema
#biennalefueraktuellefotografie #biennale2022 #fromwhereistand #contestedlandscapes

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