Landscape of Anxiety

Climate change and environmental challenges generate urgent situations through extreme weather conditions, loss of biodiversity, devastated environments, the uncontrolled trajectories of the exploitation of basic resources such as water and air, global growth, and forced  migrations. These conditions reference the profound and irreversible impact of human activity on the Earth, the age of the Anthropocene (Paul Crutzen), which represents a different trajectory of the Earth’s systems.

North Macedonia and the Western Balkan countries have become a pollution hotspot in Europe, due to outdated coal plants, smoke-emitting cars and faulty industries. A series of factors have threatened the air quality, the country's natural wealth, and consequent changes in pollution patterns have had environmental impacts that can potentially cause a variety of adverse health outcomes.

The exhibition focuses on these conditions named Landscape of Anxiety in which artistic practices encounter crisis situations as environmental engagements, generating tools, while influencing other interrelated agendas, such as urban planning, social inclusion and the right to a healthy environment. The event is the result of a collaboration between artists, experts, activists, formal and informal associations, and institutions; including works that enable visibility, propose or encourage solutions, or are forms of activism that involve the public around existing problems and challenges. The works of this exhibition were conceived as a result of workshops held in Veles, Bitola, Prespa and Skopje.