Touch Nature

Featuring Austrian & Macedonian artists exploring the relationship between humans and nature in the
age of the Anthropocene.

The planetary climate crisis is manifesting itself in an alarming manner. Increasingly extreme weather events and their destructive forces are having a lasting effect on our romantic idea of an “unspoiled nature.” In response, the multimedia exhibition Touch Nature presents Austrian and Macedonian artists who take a stand on the effects of the Anthropocene. It becomes clear that artists not only document abuses and articulate forms of resistance, but also develop encouraging strategies for a fundamental change of perspective, offering hopeful visions for a new relationship between humans and nature grounded in mindfulness environmental respect. The notion that humankind exists outside of nature and has dominion over it has proven to be a phantasm. Humans cannot be understood as independent of their environment, but only in their multifaceted relationship with other beings. Artists approach this understanding with traditional media like painting, drawing, photography, video, and sculpture, but also develop new forms such as bio art, which incorporates the intentional participation of non-
human organisms as active agents within the artistic production. They are likewise departing from traditional exhibition venues, intertwining their practice with environmental movements and creating eco-art projects that combines ecological and eco-feminist activism with modes of artistic inquiry. 

Artistic projects are developed in interdisciplinary collaboration with scientists from a wide range of disciplines who address issues such as economic exploitation of land, increasing soil sealing, the global impact of current consumer behaviour and the spread of epidemics but also to explore living organisms and genetics. The Touch Nature exhibition series, which has so far been shown in 13 in Austrian Culture Forums in cooperations with galleries and museums in Europe and the USA, follows the insights of Alexander von Humboldt, pioneer of ecological thinking and founder of climatology, ecology, and oceanography, who famously wrote to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1810: “Nature must be felt.”

Curator: Sabine Fellner
Curatorial Assistant: Laurenz Fellner

Artist exhibiting:

Judith Wagner, Nada Prlja, Petre Nikoloski, Irena Paskali, Michael Endlicher, Donya Aalipour, Elena Kristofor, Annika Eschmann, Maren Jeleff – Klaus Pichler, Monica L. Locascio, Alfred Hruschka, Prinzpod, Elizabeth von Samsonow, Nives Widauer, Edgar Honetschläger, Monika Pichler, Marielis Seyler, Aneta Svetieva