Dreaming Awake
03/10/2018 — 06/03/2018
Marres, House for Contemporary Culture,
Maastricht, Países Baixos
The exhibition Dreaming Awake presented a tropical forest in layers. The humidity, the heat, the sounds and a breath-taking multiplicity of species from the Amazon rainforest are invasive forms where the landscape imposes itself on us. Once inside, there is no way to escape. The pressure of the environment is so powerful and hypnotic that it leaves us in a dream-like state.
The project was developed by the curator, Luiza Mello, and the director of Marres, Valentijn Byvanck, in partnership with the artists Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané and Luiz Zerbini.
Luiz Zerbini transformed the groundfloor of the Marres into an immersive environment with real plants. Natureza espiritual da realidade — The Spiritual Nature of Reality — , is an almost living picture where we are touched by the humidity, the heat, the smell of the damp earth and decomposing leaves, and where we marvel at the multiplicity of colours and forms carefully positioned in the space by the artist.
On mounting the stairs, the visitor comes face to face with new layers of this dreamed forest. In Promenade 2, the French artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster invites us to tune out of the external world and experience the sound of a tropical storm. The space is empty; the architecture dissolves so that our attention focuses fully on the sonic environment.
Daniel Steegmann Mangrané presents the film Spiral Forest, where a camera rotates through the Atlantic Rainforest creating interconnected movements. The spectator’s body revolves around this continuous spiral and is projected inside the forest, entering into the flow of the image in the moment. The second work, Phantom, is a virtual reality environment where visitors enter and wander through a forest scanned in black and white, using an Oculus Rift.
The exhibition Dreaming Awake was held at Marres, Maastricht, Netherlands, between March 10th and June 3rd 2018.
Credits
Video
Automatica has been developing cultural projects since 2005, working in the creation, production, curation, management, coordination and consultancy of exhibitions, educational programs, publications and other activities related to artistic production. It works with artists, curators, art critics, art historians, cultural institutions, public and private sponsors. It participates in public notices and awards, and prepares projects for incentive laws in the three spheres of public administration.
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