The signs of the contemporary climate crisis are by now evident in our everyday life, even aside from the fact that they have been declared by researchers around the globe for decades: from floods to droughts, from hydro-geological disasters to desertification, from the melting of polar ice caps to the destruction of entire ecosystems, up to mass migration caused by climatic inequalities.
Natural and artificial environments carry within them traces, the evident remains of these changes. This perceivable evidence must be studied with forensic methodology in order for its causes to be revealed and to be able to openly address those who are responsible for them. Likewise, they must be used to develop long-term political and technological strategies that can change the course of the environmental crisis and guarantee the wellness of animals and plants on our planet.
What can the artist’s role be in all of this? If artists can’t heal the world, can they at least reinforce the processes of participation in choices promoting a change in the way we approach the world? Is it possible to rethink artistic objects and discourses in terms of platforms of critical thinking able to redirect the perception of the violence perpetrated on the environment and of the chances to imagine and build shared alternatives?
The works exhibited in this edition of Mind the Gap invite us to embrace such an approach of study, understanding, condemnation, and imaginative possibility revolving around the climate crisis, dealing with topics ranging from the more-than-human, migration, and geological time to logistics and ways of inhabiting spaces.