What if God was an insect ?
Ao-Hata Bookstore의 갤러리 공간에서 열린 영국 출신의 작가 Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck의 <What if God was Insect?>라는 동명의 전시를 통해 발행된 작품집입니다. 이 책에는 작가의 캔버스와 종이에 그린 그림, 사진이 포함되어 있습니다.
작가는 정원을 가꾸면서 인간과 다른 생명체의 관계에 대해 의문이 생겼고, 그 공간은 공생에 대해 배우는 공간으로 탈바꿈하게 됩니다. 현재 전 세계적으로 곤충 종의 40%가 감소하고 있고 모든 곤충은 100년 이내 멸종될 수 있다고 하는데요 그 원인은 도시화와 농지의 개발, 살충제와 비료의 사용, 기후변화와 같은 인간의 활동으로 인한 것입니다. 모든 곤충이 사라지면 새와 물고기와 같은 곤충을 먹는 동물들이 차례로 멸종될 수 있고 그것은 곧 인간에게 필수적인 식량 공급이 위험해짐을 의미합니다. 우리가 상상하는 것 이상으로 우리의 삶은 곤충이라는 가장 작은 생물과 같이 인간이 아닌 다른 것에 달려있습니다.
작가는 우리의 상상력을 자극하고 상황에 대한 경각심을 불러일으킵니다. 존재하는 것과 사라지는 것, 존재했던 것의 기억이 모두 꿈틀대는 정원에서 작가는 신은 곤충이라면 무엇을 하고 싶은지 묻습니다.
For her solo exhibition in the gallery space of Ao-Hata Bookstore, the UK-based artist Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck presents What if God was an Insect? The exhibition includes some of her most recent paintings on canvas, drawings on paper, and photographs. All developed from the artist's observations and reflections while gardening. Questioning the relationships between humans and other life forms, Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck reclaims the garden as a space for learning about togetherness. The two larger paintings presented in the exhibition depicting women working in a garden belong to the series Village. The artist began this in 2020 in Alsace, where she was born thirty years earlier. As Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck has experienced working in her family's organic gardens and a biodynamic farm in the village, the paintings draw upon certain personal horticultural scenes. The drawings and paintings are accompanied by a series of photographs of flowers and insects that Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck has taken in several of the places where she has lived and travelled to in past years. The series includes two photographs of cosmos flowers. These images date back to summer 2018 as the artist photographed the plants in front of her grandmother's home, a place she has known since her birth. One can see some of the houses she passed by as a child on her way to school or the library. While flowers and insects in these photographs seem tiny, the colours are soft and dreamy, reminding us perhaps of the cosmos that we have seen ourselves on our own way to school or the insects we might have encountered in our childhood with a sort of excitement. Today, in 2021, it is said that 40% of the species of insects are declining in number worldwide, and all insects could be extinct within a hundred years. The causes for this seem to be human activities such as urbanisation and development of farmland, usage of insecticide and fertiliser, and climate change. The impact of declining numbers of insects on our ecosystem is immeasurable. If all the insects come to disappear, animals that feed on them, such as birds and fish, could at their turn become extinct. Equally, the plants dependent on pollinators, such as bees, could disappear too. This for humans means that the essential supply of food could be a risk. So, I wonder, will our grandchildren be able to see cosmos flowers and insects? More than we imagine, our lives and wellbeing depend on other-than-humans, such as the tiniest creatures that are insects.
In titling the exhibition What if God was an Insect? Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck stirs our imagination and raises the alarm about the situation while also inviting us to act on it. She said to me not too long ago, “In gardening there is a certain sense of rhythm, a continuous wonder, and growth not necessarily measurable and tangible, growth also from failures". Remembering her words, I wonder; What could we learn in a garden where the memory of existing, disappearing and the ones which existed are all wriggling ? Johanna is asking us if God was an insect what would you do?
What if God was an insect ?
Ao-Hata Bookstore의 갤러리 공간에서 열린 영국 출신의 작가 Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck의 <What if God was Insect?>라는 동명의 전시를 통해 발행된 작품집입니다. 이 책에는 작가의 캔버스와 종이에 그린 그림, 사진이 포함되어 있습니다.
작가는 정원을 가꾸면서 인간과 다른 생명체의 관계에 대해 의문이 생겼고, 그 공간은 공생에 대해 배우는 공간으로 탈바꿈하게 됩니다. 현재 전 세계적으로 곤충 종의 40%가 감소하고 있고 모든 곤충은 100년 이내 멸종될 수 있다고 하는데요 그 원인은 도시화와 농지의 개발, 살충제와 비료의 사용, 기후변화와 같은 인간의 활동으로 인한 것입니다. 모든 곤충이 사라지면 새와 물고기와 같은 곤충을 먹는 동물들이 차례로 멸종될 수 있고 그것은 곧 인간에게 필수적인 식량 공급이 위험해짐을 의미합니다. 우리가 상상하는 것 이상으로 우리의 삶은 곤충이라는 가장 작은 생물과 같이 인간이 아닌 다른 것에 달려있습니다.
작가는 우리의 상상력을 자극하고 상황에 대한 경각심을 불러일으킵니다. 존재하는 것과 사라지는 것, 존재했던 것의 기억이 모두 꿈틀대는 정원에서 작가는 신은 곤충이라면 무엇을 하고 싶은지 묻습니다.
For her solo exhibition in the gallery space of Ao-Hata Bookstore, the UK-based artist Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck presents What if God was an Insect? The exhibition includes some of her most recent paintings on canvas, drawings on paper, and photographs. All developed from the artist's observations and reflections while gardening. Questioning the relationships between humans and other life forms, Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck reclaims the garden as a space for learning about togetherness. The two larger paintings presented in the exhibition depicting women working in a garden belong to the series Village. The artist began this in 2020 in Alsace, where she was born thirty years earlier. As Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck has experienced working in her family's organic gardens and a biodynamic farm in the village, the paintings draw upon certain personal horticultural scenes. The drawings and paintings are accompanied by a series of photographs of flowers and insects that Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck has taken in several of the places where she has lived and travelled to in past years. The series includes two photographs of cosmos flowers. These images date back to summer 2018 as the artist photographed the plants in front of her grandmother's home, a place she has known since her birth. One can see some of the houses she passed by as a child on her way to school or the library. While flowers and insects in these photographs seem tiny, the colours are soft and dreamy, reminding us perhaps of the cosmos that we have seen ourselves on our own way to school or the insects we might have encountered in our childhood with a sort of excitement. Today, in 2021, it is said that 40% of the species of insects are declining in number worldwide, and all insects could be extinct within a hundred years. The causes for this seem to be human activities such as urbanisation and development of farmland, usage of insecticide and fertiliser, and climate change. The impact of declining numbers of insects on our ecosystem is immeasurable. If all the insects come to disappear, animals that feed on them, such as birds and fish, could at their turn become extinct. Equally, the plants dependent on pollinators, such as bees, could disappear too. This for humans means that the essential supply of food could be a risk. So, I wonder, will our grandchildren be able to see cosmos flowers and insects? More than we imagine, our lives and wellbeing depend on other-than-humans, such as the tiniest creatures that are insects.
In titling the exhibition What if God was an Insect? Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck stirs our imagination and raises the alarm about the situation while also inviting us to act on it. She said to me not too long ago, “In gardening there is a certain sense of rhythm, a continuous wonder, and growth not necessarily measurable and tangible, growth also from failures". Remembering her words, I wonder; What could we learn in a garden where the memory of existing, disappearing and the ones which existed are all wriggling ? Johanna is asking us if God was an insect what would you do?
