Human/Nature

Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, in partnership with the international conservation organization Rare, Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet is a pioneering artist residency and collaborative exhibition project that uses contemporary art to investigate the relationships between fragile natural environments and the human communities that depend upon them.

This collaborative multi-year exhibition project sent eight leading artists to eight UNESCO World Heritage sites around the globe to create new work informed and inspired by their experiences in these diverse cultural and natural regions. The exhibition features new commissioned works by Mark Dion, Ann Hamilton, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Marcos Ramírez ERRE, Rigo 23, Dario Robleto, Diana Thater, and Xu Bing. The artists each traveled to a World Heritage site of their choice and completed two or more mini-residencies, creating works based on their experiences.

Working in a range of media, this group of artists has a collective history of risk-taking and has created, for this exhibition, thoughtful and thought-provoking work that challenges the boundaries of artistic categories and tests the limits of what art can do. Human/Nature encourages global support for the protection of cultural and biological diversity and provokes new questions regarding conservation, cultural understanding, and artistic inspiration.

At MCASD, Human/Nature is complemented by two interactive galleries for visitors to further investigate the exhibition's themes, concepts, and artists, as well as share their own thoughts and ideas about the exhibition and create their own works of art in activities designed by Dario Robleto and Xu Bing. Both of these interactive spaces feature furniture made from sustainable, found materials—including sofas made from paper-pulp egg crates—all designed by Tijuana-based architect Giacomo Castagnola.

Human/Nature
Artists Respond to a Changing Planet

Künstler: Mark Dion, Ann Hamilton, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, Marcos Ramirez Erre, Rigo 23 , Dario Robleto, Diana Thater, Xu Bing