Art-Science Exhibition: A Felicitous Neo-past (1 Dec 2017-18 Feb 2018 MU Gallery)

Description

The A Felicitous Neo-past installation at the MU gallery presents “relics of the Anthropocene” through four pairs of soil monoliths. Each pair consists of two vertical sections of the Earth’s crust  which were excavated from the inside (remediated) and the outside of a square hole under a 1 m² area of the Earth’s surface. A webcam system is constantly observing the monolith and trying to unscramble the pattern. Meanwhile, all the anthropogenic rubble extracted from the soil is poured on the floor with a wind vane and a neon sign (“Whatever the weather we only reach welfare together” - a quote from the propaganda of Marshall plan) on top. Besides the building rubble visible in the exhibit, the invisible polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), metals and microplastics present in the soil, known to be present from chemical analysis in the laboratory, were extracted (remediated) before returning the soil to the original hole, located in the outskirts of Amsterdam. This soil is on exhibit for future generations. Project by Shanghai artist Cheng Guo in collaboration with Heather Leslie, winners of teh Bio Art Design Award 2017