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Nottingham Contemporary tells a compelling exhibition-as–sci–fi story that avoids the eco-anxiety commonly associated with climate changes.
Developed by exhibiting artists Céline Condorelli, Grace Ndiritu and Femke Herregraven, this is an exhibition-as-sci-fi story, envisioning a not-so-distant future shaped by climate change; seasons have gone, fires decimate Sherwood Forest and Nottingham is reborn as the Silver City (itself further explored in Our Silver City in 2094This exhibition featured a novella, titled, written by Liz Jensen, a sci-fi author. The show operates in a contemplative register and highlights collaboration as a mode for practice. It also employs a wide variety of artworks in parallel to speculative fiction in order to highlight some of today’s most pressing issues. In short, it’s an exploration of art in activist mode in which it serves to prototype and consider new ways of being.
The gallery’s opening gallery explores the central theme of change. Artifacts and artworks from different decades are displayed on chipboard stands. It is a visual archive of future plans. Maps of Nottingham from 1800s to 1980s show a city that is in industrial flux. Anthony McCall’s video Landscape for Fire (1972) shows a choreographed grid of fire set and burnt repeatedly in an airstrip field; Zara Zandieh’s video Octavia’s Vision (2021) captures queer freedom, decolonisation, and environmental movements through the retelling stories by Octavia Butler.
A multimedia gallery examines the need for new technologies in a new city. Fossils, fake rock clusters, and sound clips are mixed with short films. Condorelli’s large textiles and a wall-print explore colour-producing techniques inspired by cephalopod mimetic capabilities. Her printed fabric Resuscitated Aural Study (2021) A drape runs across the gallery on a series metal bars that look like a dry skin. It transforms from an awning to a stonelike table. However, the images of tentacle-like wall prints and organic, cellular globs on the curtain are not descriptive and do not connect with the narrative.
Ndiritu’s and Herregraven’s immersive installations look for nonmaterial connections in community and the environment respectively. Ndiritu is a community builder The Temple (2021), a lifesize version of a circular museum that invites interaction and commonality. Handmade goddess sculptures and weavings that show fabric as an old technology fuel curiosity. Herregraven’s Wet Spells 2021 is a calm, anachronistic climate lab that simulates a world without supercomputers. Here, weather can be predicted by our senses again. Weather lore is transmitted by crackly children’s voices over makeshift antennae, and new meteorological symbols line the walls. The farfetched method is grounded by the brilliant addition of a curse tablet to weather gods, an archaeological find that dates back to 400BCE.
Both installations encourage self-reflection, and the desire to find meaning through inner knowledge, ancient wisdoms, the environment, and religion. It also discusses the rise of spirituality among Gen Zs and millennials, who, lacking faith in patriarchal institutions have turned to spiritual practice such as Wicca and meditation to improve their personal wellbeing. Our Silver City in 2094 It is believed that spiritual practices can promote positive coexistence and build community. It’s convincingly enough executed to instil a sense of optimism about self-directed change.
Since it’s a fiction, the exhibition provides a narrative distance that avoids the eco-anxiety usually associated with climate change. The bleakest artworks, Ben Rivers’s Urth (2016) and Cauleen Smith’s Folk Song and Song for Earth (2013), short films that foresee humans becoming extinct, are offset by the exhibition’s themes of progress with positive intent and instead inspire a sense of agency.
Combine art, writing, and historical archives to tell a story Our Silver City, 2094 It demonstrates the power of different art forms to engage positively with climate crises and inspire change. It is not preachy and encourages imaginative engagement by exploring futures tangibly.
The future is close enough to be relevant when you place the exhibition 72 years in the future. It is not far enough that it is impossible to connect with it. The conceptual time-jump encourages you to think about what children today might need and how we can impact that. The show does not ask for anything, but only that you have heard, seen, and experienced the possibilities. It is a profound exhibition because it doesn’t scare people, does not require them to change and doesn’t require multi-national COP agreements.
Our Silver City in 2094It is currently on display at Nottingham Contemporary until 18 April
