Research for Paisaje Adaptado
Cartagena de Indias, Colombia (left); Cartagena de Murcia, Spain (right)
Naturally Hypernatural: Visions of Nature
International Conference
http://naturallyhypernatural.sva.edu/
November 14-16, 2014
School of Visual Arts
New York
Naturally Hypernatural: Visions of Nature is an interdisciplinary conference investigating the fluctuating “essences” of “nature” and the “natural” in the 21st century. Each of these terms carries with it an enormity of philosophical questions ranging from the alteration of life itself to dialogues concerning the notion of the Anthropocene, a term used to describe man’s intervention into the natural world. The talks presented here will focus on contemporary issues in the visual arts as they intersect with the biological and geological sciences, confirming that nature remains an intrinsically mysterious, ever more mutable entity. At the present time, cellular parts are being remixed in laboratories to create synthetic organisms while geological transformations are forecasting wild swings in weather conditions. Human reproduction regularly occurs in Petri dishes while cucumbers are grown in space. The artificial and the natural now combine to form novel entities, never before seen on earth, while animal species dwindle down to extinction every day. Animals and plants are exhibited as contemporary art, while the real is conflated with the imaginary. Technological advances and their theoretical undertones have migrated into art practice producing New Media installations, Bio Art exhibitions and a global community of art practitioners adapting novel productions to cultural resources. In addition, visual art has become a social practice platform with projects that intersect with urban farming, DIY biology and extremes in performance art. Naturally Hypernatural: Visions of Nature brings together artists, historians, curators, philosophers and scientists to examine and comment on these ideas.
Organized by: Suzanne Anker, Chair, BFA Fine Arts Department, School of Visual Arts, New York and Sabine Flach, Chair, Art History Department, University of Graz, Austria
Sunday November 16, 2014
Panel 6: Colonizing Nature
Lecture by Raul Valverde
Adapted Landscape is a site-specific Mediterranean garden facing the Caribbean. It was installed during the 2014 Cartagena de Indias Biennial in Colombia, using flora that originally came from Cartagena in Murcia, Spain. This small landscape was set up in the wall fortification built by the Spanish conquerors around the 16th Century.
The topographic relationship between the two Cartagenas was used as the starting research point for the project –a significant analogy for the early conquistadors that around 1500 renamed the Colombian town after Cartagena in Spain. Both cities were strategic seaports with geographically opposing orientations, east in Spain and west in Colombia. By connecting these two points in time, Raul Valverde explores notions of referentiality and exchange to present an adapted garden.
For the construction of this public space, the terrain was divided into fruit, flowers, palms and cacti, working in close collaboration with the Colombian Foundation Verde que te quiero verde and many local nurseries of Cartagena. The specimens found are characteristic of the dry Mediterranean climate of the Spanish Cartagena, such as asparagus, lemons, oranges, date palms, olives, grape vines, or prickly pears.