BIENNALS: Klima Biennale Wien, Part II

With the vision and innovative power of art, the Klima Biennale Wien spurs the paradigm shift toward a livable and sustainable future on our planet. The key tools to achieve this objective are, without doubt, participation, collaboration, and awareness. The Biennale will stake out viable responses to the climate crisis together with the people of Vienna. The Klima Biennale Wien faces the challenge of making the highly complex and acute issues of global change, the climate crisis, species extinction, and the impacts on the human-nature fabric visible and tangible for everyone: because we urgently need to find new ways of sharing knowledge and discussing strategies together! (Part I).

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Klima Biennale Wien Archive

In association with Klima Biennale Wien, KUNST HAUS WIEN presents “Into the Woods: Perspectives on Forest Ecosystems” a comprehensive group exhibition on one of the world’s most vital ecosystems: the forest. Sixteen contemporary artistic positions reflect on the forest as a habitat, its ecological processes, as well as the threats it faces. More than ever, the world’s forests have become monuments to the imbalances found on our planet. Forests filter water and air, and supply resources and food. As habitats for the majority of terrestrial animals, forests are beneficial to human health, and, as vital carbon stores, help stabilize the planet’s climate. Logging and the profit-oriented exploitation of woodlands are accelerating the ecological crisis while climate change fuels deforestation. Artistic perspectives on various forest regions of the world—from the Amazon rainforest, to the Embobut Forest in Kenya, to the primeval forests of the Carpathians, to the Swiss pine forests, and to local woodlands—address pressing issues surrounding this sensitive ecosystem. On the one hand, the works in the exhibition engage with human influence on the condition and destruction of forests, and, on the other hand, with the collective and symbiotic nature of the forest ecosystem. “Into the Woods” speaks to reckless deforestation, the effects of forest monocultures, the tensions that exists between economic forest use and sustainable conservation, the financialization of the climate crisis, the threat to woodlands due to global warming, as well as the ecological processes and complex interrelations at the core of the forest ecosystem. The artists in the exhibition bring to light the pivotal role that forests play for the health and stability of our planet. Research-based, enlightening, and poetic works—some of which were developed in cooperation with scientists—make this complex topic feel tangible, and offer new perspectives on an ecosystem that is seemingly all too familiar. For example, Richard Mosse has used multispectral cameras and geographic information systems (GIS) for his series of large-format photographs on the effects of ecocide in the Brazilian Amazon region (Tristes Tropiques, 2020/21). Alma Heikkilä’s work, not visible or recognizable in any form, takes a macro perspective and makes visible the abundance of life that teems beneath the surface of the Earth. Diana Scherer uses the intelligence of plants to grow structures from root tissue. Her work created especially for the exhibition (from Interwoven, 2024) also symbolizes the gigantic mycorrhizal networks in the forest floor. The works, which are research-based, inspiring, poetic, and often developed in cooperation with scientists, make the complex topic tangible and enable new perspectives on an ecosystem that is supposedly so familiar to us.

Participating artists: Rodrigo Arteaga, Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán, Eline Benjaminsen & Elias Kimaiyo, Alma Heikkilä, Monica Ursina Jäger, Markus Jeschaunig, Isa Klee, Susanne Kriemann, Jeewi Lee, Antje Majewski, Richard Mosse, Katie Paterson, Oliver Ressler, Abel Rodríguez, Diana Scherer, Rasa Šmite & Raitis Šmits

Photo: Markus Jeschaunig, Mooshelm, 2024, Courtesy der Künstler © Markus Jeschaunig, Photo: Rudolf Strobl

Info: Curator: Sophie Haslinger, Kunst Haus Wien, Untere Weißgerberstraße 11, Vienna, Austria, Duration: 6/4-11/8/2024, Days & Hours: Daily 10:00-18:00, www.biennale.wien/