With the "Parliament of Plants" exhibition in 2020/21, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein addressed an important topic of our time. "Parliament of Plants II" continues this debate.
The daily reports on climate change and the knowledge of how important intact ecosystems are give us cause to rethink our relationship with nature and the living world. The exhibition aims to make a contribution to this by combining artistic approaches with new findings from scientific research. Parallel to the realization that humans are profoundly changing the earth's ecology, a paradigm shift is underway in biological research. Plants are understood as capable or (as Stefano Mancuso puts it) intelligent beings with which our survival is deeply connected. This brings with it a fundamentally changed view of the principles of nature. Artists take up these themes with their complex interrelationships from a wide variety of perspectives and give plants a voice.
"Parliament of Plants II" responds to this need and is also an invitation to continue and deepen the discussions stimulated by the first exhibition. The exhibition is designed as an open structure. On the one hand, it aims to offer a new narrative in order to show how everything is connected to everything else. On the other hand, it aims to present the principle of cooperation as a social counter-image to the parasitic treatment of nature. Observations on the complexity of nature, findings from the latest research in biology and neuroscience are incorporated into the artistic works, as is the knowledge of indigenous cultures. The handling of resources, questions about colonial history as well as current history and a different perception of time are also addressed. The artist Zheng Bo, for example, is convinced that we need to start thinking about time in order to develop an ecological sensibility.
Artists of the exhibition
Polly Apfelbaum, Ursula Biemann & Paolo Tavares, Anna Hilti, Jochen Lempert, Rivane Neuenschwander & Mariana Lacerda, Alevtina Kakhidze, Uriel Orlow, Silke Schatz, Thomas Struth, Athena Vida, Miki Yui, Zheng Bo.
May 5 to October 22, 2023
