NAVIGATING OUR CONNECTION WITH NATURE

Stapferhaus

What is 'nature', and to whom does it belong? Are we part of it, or is it part of us? Organic tomatoes and vegan cheese are becoming status symbols, while global meat consumption also continues to rise. We drive an electric carbut also fly to the Caribbean. Amid climate crisis and biodiversity loss, we are presented with the fundamental question of how we as humans relate to nature. Rather than providing answers, 'Nature. And us?' creates space for dialogue and new perspectives.

Location: Lenzburg
Client: Stapferhaus
Year: 2022

Overview picture of a space filled with showcases: some are stacked orderly, others seem to have fallen over. Life is preserved and escaping from this human-created order. Multiple people look intently at the different the showcases. — In a world full of stacked display cases, you find relics and memories from the days of traditional natural history museums. Explore how we humans have ordered, explored, feared and restrained nature over the past centuries.

What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Werner Heisenberg

Four rows of wooden horizontal showcases are assembled in front of each other like a broad staircase. The insights of the showcases are lit up, showing various animals. Text on the showcases indicates the 'natural order' as humans have long described it. A man sits on the showcase, reading a book, another peers over te look inside a higher showcase. — Sitting on top of natural history: a spatial metaphor for how Western understanding of nature tended to place humans at the top of a constructed hierarchy.

A historic wooden showcase or cabinet appears to have fallen over. Next to it, a man reads a text sign. — What happens when we break with this way of thinking?

Natural connection

This exhibition awakens your senses from the very start. Your shoes? Take them off. Because isn’t it strange that humans are the only creatures that detach themselves from the ground in this way? You enter the exhibition by walking barefoot across a surface of ancient, yet ordinary, grains of sand. Your footprints remain visible until they’re covered by other footprints or disappear with time: you become part of this ‘living’ exhibition.

Three people stand in a black room, with the floor covered in almost white sand. The room has a blue hue to it. On the back wall it says 'What is nature?'. Two people use levelling rakes to make shapes in the sand. Another person stands in the middle, where sand falls from the ceiling into a big pile. He has his arm outstretched to feel the falling sand.

The power of connection is palpable throughout the exhibition. The heart of the exhibition is a large open space full of monumental projections. Images and live improvised music form the backdrop for stories about politics, science and philosophy that illustrate our ambivalent relationship with nature. Headphones enable you to listen to the perspectives of a surfer, city pigeon manager, Minecraft gamer, florist, shaman and cook. The room’s atmosphere changes with each perspective.

Two people look up between sheer curtains. On it is an artistic projection of blue cells splitting. Both people wear a compass around their neck and are barefoot.

A women's silhouette between colourful projected sheer fabrics, hanging from the ceiling. The projections show different types of fruit. In the background are various panels that seem to float from the ceiling with different infographics on them. — Semitransparent curtains create nice perspectives and clear visitor routes – and a beautiful backdrop to project artful depictions of nature.

Everything is connected: instead of doors, hanging strip curtains seamlessly guide you from one space to another.

How is the earth really doing? At the heart of the exhibition, a world full of graphs and data shows the earth's current state. Not as an alarm, but as a place to discuss how to deal with the crippling feelings this data evokes.

Floating panels hang all the way from the ceiling, with artistic prints on the Lightbox. — Our influence on earth: satellite images reveal traces of human activity.

An older woman looks up to a black wall filled with seemingly floating stones on display. — Can we own nature? We invited the public to contribute their favourite rock to the museum's collection, and the story that goes with it.

Our inner compass

To navigate the fundamental questions about your relation with nature, you receive a compass. Each pavilion presents a what if-situation, where visitors can question their preconceptions, open their minds and re-calibrate their compass. While a compass normally directs you, this one provides a starting point of new directions to explore.