From the Ashes
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group exhibition at Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland

curator: Michalina Sablik

15.03 – 26.05.2024

The world around us is on fire. A figure with a foolish expression is drinking coffee and says: ‘This is fine.’ Humorously sad, reconciled with the raging apocalypse, memes reflect the belief that nature and the human world are like the mythical phoenix, always rising from the ashes. In many cultures, this fantastic creature, associated with solar deities, symbolised the cyclic character of nature, immortality and the rebirth of life. Indeed, for centuries the phoenix was believed to burn itself to death at the end of its life and be reborn as a mighty bird.

Global environmental crises are challenging the long-held belief that nature, like the mythical phoenix, has an infinite capacity for regeneration. As the Basque philosopher Michael Marder writes in The Phoenix Complex (2023), belief in rebirth is limiting and conservative, and the hope it conveys can be dangerous. It implies that people do not need to change anything or take any drastic measures because nature will defend itself. Only deep despair can inspire radical change.

In the exhibition we present works made by artists after 2020, which are divided into two themes. The first part, Flame, speaks of the reality of multiple crises — climate, economic, social — communicated through media images and the internet. Many of the pieces apply digital aesthetics or have been created using new technologies such as artificial intelligence, 3D design or robotics. In turn, the second part, Birth, presents speculative visions of an ecological-technological future created in the spirit of collectivism and posthumanist feminism, introducing utopian and solarpunk narratives.

artists: Hanna Antonsson, Sara Bezovšek, Justyna Górowska, Ewelina Jarosz, Marcin Janusz, Karolina Jarzębak, Ida Karkoszka, Agata Lankamer, Aleksandra Liput, Julia Lohmann, Antonina Nowacka, Pity (Kasia Piątkowska), Agata Polak, Aleksandra Wieliczko, Klara Woźniak, X-Philes (Rafał Domagała, Maja Gomulska, Bartosz Jakubowski, Gabriela Sułkowska), Xtreme Girl (Lena Peplińska, Laura Radzewicz), Ada Zielińska

link
Internet is All about Hormones. Between the Practices of Extreme Online Presence and Molecular “Lore”
by Kat Zavada

"Sara Bezovšek’s video SND, which presents potential apocalypse options, can be placed on the doomscrolling axis between dopamine and cortisol – excitement and curiosity that soon fuse into stress that overwhelms my body. The piece appears in two forms – one as a website, the other, presented at Zachęta, as a desktop recording of the www version. The versions differ in terms of user experience – while experiencing the web version we can scroll down, delve deeper into hyperlinks or close the tab altogether, but in the video version we are somehow forced to passively watch the apocalypse – we can only close our eyes or walk away. A collage of GIFs, video forms, hyperlinks and images, SND places us on the geopolitical map of the world along with all the known crises, social unrest and conspiracy theories – aliens, artificial intelligence taking over the world, cataclysms, a meteor hitting the Earth. This method is reminiscent of a depressive algorithm imposed on my feed – relentlessly extracting negative content in the form of funny memes. Bezovšek is like the Adam Curtis of digital art, in her case we binge-watch the apocalypse in an extremely dense, exhausting aesthetic, but we want more. When I was watching her work at Zachęta, a couple was sitting in front of me – she had her head on his shoulder – watching the apocalypse together. With or without lovers, we watch the end of the world live every day. And it is fine, I guess?"
Phoenixes and Cyborgs: Mapping Options in the Field of Art
by Ewelina Jarosz aka underwater_activist Manifesto of a nymph from the cyber_nymphs duo

"The monumental video SND (2021) by Sara Bezovšek reminds us that memes, gifs and internet videos have become elements of the age of wasteocene. The materials collected by the artist weave a post-apocalyptic reality into a stream of recurring nightmarish representations. The pessimistic content that scrolls across the smartphone screen does not motivate action, but rather imbues the body with a symbolic order of ecocide. The body of the doomscroller is reduced to the thumb, which serves as the tinder that ignites the doomscrolling."