Anna Andrejew
Terra Incognita
You have probably collected fallen leaves or looked at the imprints your boots create in the mud. As children we can be absorbed by Nature, as adults, we are mostly disconnected from it. We see ourselves as rational beings that can bend Nature to our will. In this work, I want to show that we are Nature. Every atom in our body came from a star that exploded.
The print of skin reminds me of the Earth’s crust; the physical limitations of our world, where roots form lifelines like we have veins under our skin. Roots, like our veins, transport nutrients. I made these nutrients visible by studying different samples of the earth through a natural chemical process: chromatography. It is a photographic process used in permaculture to reveal the characteristics of organic matter beyond what the human eye can see. Dirt just looks like dirt- or does it? Each chromatograph shows different compositions, we would normally have missed. I see it as a reminder to use our imagination more as we did as a child.
This work is about having an explorative mindset, and being open to the full realization that we are part of Nature. It is an invitation to experience your kinship with Nature and to start looking at the world around you differently.
The Activist is a White Whale
Can a whale convince us to change? In 1966 a beluga whale spent one month swimming up and down the Lower Rhine. The river was heavily polluted and the whale developed patches on his skin which newspapers and their readers attributed to the level of water pollution. The beluga turned out to be one of the Rhine’s most famous activists and symbols of the fight against pollution. The Rhine became a clean river, but since then the situation has severely deteriorated again: the river is now heavily polluted with (micro)plastics. In this project I called upon the white whale to come back and to turn the tide once more.
