Welcome to the exhibition “The soil from which we live ” by the curator Tom Albrecht at the vernissage on 24.8.2018

Guests at vernissage in front of picture by Clement Loisel. C. T.A.

We want to show the value of the soil, the life that is in it and its threat.

Drei Künstler Matthias Fritsch, Irene Hoppenberg, Kirsten Wechslberger. worked four weeks at the Academy for Sufficiency in Priegnitz and their works are part of this exhibition. We are surprised at their productvity there.

I present the artists in alphabetical order.

Tom Albrecht will present after the artist talk on 14.9. in a collective dialogical action re-evaluate soils of guests. Dear guests, you are asked to bring a handful of soil from a place of your choice.

Ana Brotas from Portugal shows in her video a scientific “fragmented forest exercise” in which square areas of the forest are carefully cleaned.

Lioba von den Driesch uses modified children’s toys to show how Western industrial society relies on the global plundering of the soil.

The research group art created a symbol to represent the mystical-kinship connection between flora, fauna and the important resource earth.

During the residency Matthias Fritsch produced videos and furniture prototypes from salvaged, still untreated materials that lead to a more sensible use of finite resources and closed material cycles. The top priority is the floor.

Stephan Groß His collage “The Skin of the Earth” shows a fragile, complex and fascinating ecosystem that is constantly restructuring itself. Like the largest organ of man, he sees soils as a central condition of our lives.

Regan Henley from USA finds a different approach to the floor. She aims to analyze and facilitate the practice of ritualized and planned grief work in her video in a “Guided Grief Session.” The objects flower and the ground serve as a reminder of the natural process of dying.

With her potato sculpture, Irene Hoppenberg shows the importance of the potato for us as a familiar, regional, tasty staple food.

Barbara Karsch-Chaïeb points out in her photography with Veroner’s green earth that the basis of life for the cultivation of food is the soil, which should be treated more carefully. She is about to give respect to earth and soil as Mother Earth in her performance.

Maria Korporal In her interactive installation, the earth needs our breath to be fertile.

Clement Loisel His painting shows the consequences of a toxic sludge disaster in Brazil as an open wound in the ground

In his digitally processed photograph, Uwe Molkenthin establishes a relationship between man, a karstified floor, and the surface of a loaf of bread.

In her performance today, Annegret Müller sees the earth as a gift from which we live and in which we trust.

Sabine Naumann-Cleve shows in her zinc tub how fertile soil can be easily produced in any household by fermenting organic kitchen waste. She forms in her object from grave earth a cake that can also be seen as a gold bar.

Rieko Okuda will establish a relationship to the homeland, to the place of birth, in her audiovisual improvisation with Oliver Orthuber at the finissage.

Through his flower machine, Oliver Orthuber wants to bring out the aspect of technology that exploitively feeds on the soil and causes man both a curse and a blessing.

With her sculptures made of bioplastics and sand, Kirsten Wechslberger brings into our field of vision the soil creatures that are invisible to us humans.