Exhibition

Moments of #GlacierElegy Performance

JAANIKA PEERNA
Nationality: Estonian
City, Country of Residence: New York, USA
jaanikapeerna.net

On Sunday 4th October, Estonian artist Jaanika Peerna performed a moving and powerfully personal performance on the waterfront in Brooklyn. This performance is the latest installment of her ‘Glacier Elegy’ series. In this case, for this particular performance, Peerna performed on the waterfront on the East River, overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge. Importantly, the mourning over the melting glaciers transcends into a mourning and lament for the city.

Equally important, she chooses this venue for the performance as an act of embracing a city that she loves that has suffered so much. Not only did she have an intimate audience with her, but the performance was also live-streamed around the world. Therefore, through this performance, art lovers around the world could feel the touch of the ice with her. In a time of limited human interaction, crucially, Peerna was aware of both her digital and physical audience during the performance, creating immense inclusivity amongst everybody.
Above all, much of Jaanika Peerna’s recent work is a lament to glaciers and natural ice. In the same way, her ongoing project ‘Glacier Elegy’ forms the central core of her recent practice. And importantly, through this iconic work, we see a contemporary artist at her prime addressing the climate emergency.

In this case, Peerna was accompanied by performers including Coco Karol who elegantly aided her and created a deeply engaging atmosphere. With this in mind, she has often collaborated with dancers within her live work.

Climate Change Adaptation Models: Housing in Flooded Zone

OLIVIA ANN CARYE HALLSTEIN
Nationality: German-American
City, Country of Residence: Cambridge, MA, USA
oachallstein.com

Proposals for adaptions to the results of climate change involve: building new and supporting already existing structures along with increased green space to utilize ocean-side areas that are likely to flood; and structuring agricultural land vertically to make the most of available water resources. They are part of a larger series of climate-related adaptions that accentuate adaptive possibilities and extend inspiration for engineering realistic solutions that innovate already existing structures.

The State We’re in Water: Constructing a Sense of Place in the Hydrosphere

ROBIN LASSER AND MARGUERITE PERRET
Nationality: American (USA)
City, Country of Residence: Oakland, California

The State We’re In Water is an interdisciplinary project that includes an arts-based research residency and multiple exhibitions. The exhibition features five installation works by Marguerite Perret, Robin Lasser, and exhibition designer Bruce Scherting, and scientists in water, environmental science, unmanned Systems Research, plant biology, and more. Through sensory-rich video, sculptured forms, and visually complex constructions, the exhibition explores wastewater recycling; watershed habitats; the imprint of water movement on the land. Symptomatic of global issues, the local situations presented will engage University, local, and regional communities of all ages in the inviting, immersive experiences the installations offer. The goal of the overall project is to activate visitors’ sense of place and social involvement and to present art as a powerful learning platform for science.

Codex Pacificus

LAARA CERMAN
Nationality: Canadian
City, Country of Residence: Greater Vancouver, Canada
laaracerman.com

I will virtually exhibit a selection of botanical photographs from my ongoing series “Codex Pacificus” where I have created a modern interpretation of the millennia old art of botanical image making. Many of the spaces I find these plants in are often lush with diverse flora which are great habitats for bees, birds, and butterflies. Frequently these areas full of wild plants are mown down essentially destroying much needed ecosystems for pollinators and are thus replaced with a homogeneous, green, manicured lawn devoid of diversity. I hope that by taking a closer look at some common plants, people might reconsider the act of removing weeds, or consider growing native plants in their garden.

Laara’s work (in order):
Common Dancelion
Notka Rose
Salal
Oceanspray
Thimbleberry

SILENT SPRING

STEPHANIE GARON
Nationality: American (USA)
City, Country of Residence: Baltimore, Maryland
garonstudio.com

Silent Spring, a virtually immersive environmental installation, explores humanity’s connection to the environment through a journey that is both an expedition and a contemplation.

During the six minute video or Virtual Reality experience, the audience navigates a leaf labyrinth comprised of rows of 1,000 prehistoric-sized Princess Tree leaves (Paulownia tomentosa) set to sound art by Clint Sleeper. These leaves, classified as an invasive species of weeds, are typically found in soils hurt by construction or fire and frequently located in pavement cracks or by powerlines at the road’s edge. They grow 15 feet/year until smothering the canopy. All leaves were sourced by the artist. The experience aims to transport the viewer to a setting where they address their personal connection to nature and reflect on both their real and virtual surroundings within an urban setting.

Nature as Art

JERRY BAUER
Nationality: American (USA)
City, Country of Residence: Puerto Rico

I am a biological scientist and use photography as a tool for conservation and awareness building. This is a photographic exhibit showing natural scenes of art in nature. I want the viewer to open their senses to see natural artistic creations through photography. Key goal is for the audience to see beyond what they normally see and to create an appreciation and understanding of natural art found in nature.

[Co-sponsored by our partner, U.S. Forest Service]

Mithemen / Take away

IRENA PASKALI
Nationality: Citizen of the world
City, Country of Residence: Cologne, Germany
paskali-i.de

The tree…it was love at first sight. Yes, I know there are several trees here, but for me it is the one tree that stands on several legs. I want to take this tree with me. Tomorrow, when I wake up in another place, when I look out of my window, I am longing to see my tree, my love again.

Home (Berlin 2012 – 2015)

JONAH LANDOR-TAMAGATA
Nationality: American (USA)
City, Country of Residence: Oakland, California

As may be true with many TNOC festival participants, in cities I often look to nature—plants, insects, land forms—that help me to feel related to a place. Without always knowing it, I seek situations where the force of nature peeks or breaks through the overwhelmingness of urban modern life, providing solace and space. As with every city, Berlin, where these were painted, has many layers and lenses that it can be seen through. One of these is how, after the devastation of World War Two, then the splitting of the city into East and West, there flourished a kind of neglect that allowed unique ecological processes to unfold over time in “abandoned” spaces. While today these “urban wildernesses” are fast disappearing, their value as wildlife and plant habitat as well as cultural and health is recognized, for example at the Schöneberger Südgelände—a former-railway-switching-yard-turned-urban park that showcases both its human history and the 60-year-old ‘urban wilderness’ that has grown through it. Another example is the Prinzessinningarten, an urban garden and community space that has incorporated spontaneous vegetation (black locust, or Robinia trees) from the site. It is my hope that these works may provide some solace and a space to reflect and dream about the necessity of nature in urban area, as these places and moments did for me during the first years living in a new city.

Plant My Trees

LIANG JIAMING
Nationality: Chinese
City, Country of Residence: Lishui, China

我幼时生活于农村，是一个小小的村子。村子口有一颗柚子树，三四月开一簇一簇的白花，进入村子的路口边的田里种着枇杷树、桃子树、橘子树，轮换着时间开花与结果。房子靠着山盖起，在家的门口左边有两颗枣树，右边种着杨梅树，后山上有一片竹林，离房子不远有几棵板栗树，还有小半山坡的橘子树和李子树。后来长大到了市区求学，而后去了更远的城市继续求学，家也搬到了市区里。我感受着城市现代化进程给我的学习与生活带来的便利与舒适，但我的生活里失去了很多的“伙伴”。我开始留意身边所见的的树，法国梧桐、香樟树、银杏、无患子，观察它们的生长，企图窥探树的思想。对我来说，从生活在极度接近自然的生活环境变化成住进钢筋混凝土的坚硬的建筑中，树是我仍能与自然对话的媒介，缓解与自然割裂的焦虑。

城市越来越城市化，可人们似乎仍不满意，而我开始与树对话。

我用绘画与拍摄的方式记录了生活中不同场景不同时刻不同状态的树。

在绘画中，画面开始慢慢地有意抹去一些人类的痕迹。在城市出现在此地之前，这本是树所栖息之地。而此时“入侵者”开始思考，是否需要退让部分领地，来营造更有利的生存空间

I grew up in a small village in the countryside, and since childhood, I’ve had many tree friends. It has been a difficult transition to move into the concrete forest, the cities. I started a dialogue with the trees. I want to know the spirit of the trees, in different times and different seasons. Often in my paintings, human traces are removed intentionally, so we remember that ‘cities’ were the habitat of trees, before us. Would cities be more livable if we returned more of the land to trees?

Othering and belonging: the Campine tree of a pine tree

WENDY WUYTS
Nationality: Belgian
City, Country of Residence: Antwerp, Belgium
woodwidewebstories.com

I plan to translate my retelling of a folktale about a witch tree in the Campine. Last summer/autumn I have been guiding forest baths in this region in Belgium and also rewrote some folktales, blending old magical realist elements with ecofeminist and intersectional environmentalist observations. The tree in the story is an ‘immigrant second generation’ and refers to the human immigrants in the same region; how pines and human immigrants contributed to the ‘economic growth’ but were also treated as less. I want to spark a debate about the idea of ‘exotic species’, ‘invasive species’ and how it affects belonging and initiates othering.

Medieval Medicinal Botany, Silhouette Installations

PANTEA KARIMI
Nationality: Iranian-American
City, Country of Residence: San Jose, California
panteakarimi.com

Wall Garden is an installation of medicinal plants on the wall, composed of various kinds and sizes. The plants’ silhouettes are drafted after the original images in The Herbal manuscript, which was composed by the 12th-century Andalusian physician al-Ghafiqi. This is one of the most remarkable medieval botanical manuscripts on medicinal plants, their names, their visuals, and their healing properties.

Wall Garden is both the study of medicinal plants and cultural expression. It is a symbolic representation of the relationship between humans and the natural world and the potential, maintaining this relationship, may present. Such a fascination with the power of herbal medicine has its roots in medieval medical practices that placed great emphasis on the benefits of nature. By contrast, in our modern world, we mainly rely on chemically manufactured substances. The installation uses broken lines to represent our “shifting horizon” and perspective towards nature; plants are represented in black as a metaphor for the dwindling relationship between humans and nature.

Art- Human- Environment

KARIM ALAHKHANI
Nationality: Iranian
City, Country of Residence: Kerman, Iran
Instagram: @alahkhani

In a world which, ever-rising amount of technology and urban infrastructures surround human life, it is obvious that nature and environment are remorsefully in danger of extinction. Hence, it is necessary to raise an objection against this trend. In my perspective, ”art” is an insightful and cogent tool, which, is capable of protecting the environment appropriately. Therefore, in course of my ideology and creativity, I am conscientiously obliged to disclose angers and jeopardies, which prominently threaten the world and human life. In the presented works, I have seen the tree as a tremendous symptom and indication of environment. In favor of this finding, I have performed these works in the subject of tree and environment in contrast to fabricated infrastructures and technological advancements.

Karim’s works (in order):
A Cube, performance, Laleh Park, Tehran, Iran, 2012
Trees, performance, 2011
Loot Desert, installation, Shahdad Kaloot, Iran, 2006 (two images)
Memory of a Tree

Scene of the Observatory

TAKUMA UEMATSU
Nationality: Japanese
City, Country of Residence: Osaka, Japan
takumauematsu.com

In everything from sculpture to architecture, cities, and societies, indeterminate forms are transformed into orderly entities with the organic energy of life. In both the astronomical observatory and the natural environment that surrounded this artificial structure, I observed a vivid, definite presence and a constant emission of heat.

Habiter Le Monde

HAMEDINE KANE
Nationality: Sénégal / Mauritanie
City, Country of Residence: Brussels, Belgium

Habiter le Monde or, Inhabiting the World, navigates the paths crossed and inscribed by refugees, designed and serendipitous alike: harbours, enclaves, deltas, and borders, spaces transformed into places of desolation and detention. The work draws on ancient and modern mythologies of walking – from pilgrimages and diasporas to flâneurisms and derives – as part of its effect. As the artist’s trail presses itself into the grass, into the dust and along the borders of territories and gardens, the film reveals a state in which the mind, body and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together. Habiter le Monde reveals an immediate method for unfolding stories, of hope, love, play and despair, in order to reclaim the hostile territories and transform them back into fertile ground for life and creativity. Each walk containing its own measure, complete at every point along the way.

The Last Farewell

NEZAKET TEKIN
Nationality: Turkey
City, Country of Residence: Izmir, Turkey
nezakettekinportfolyo.blogspot.com
Instagram: @nezaketekin

This study aims to draw attention to the deaths of animals in the city and its surroundings. Most of the time, deaths caused by humans and other animals often go unnoticed. Through these photographs, ceremonial farewells were organized to the dead animals as they deserve. It is aimed to discuss with the audience the living conditions of the animals, how their area was seized and the reasons that led to their death.

The spirit of the tree

SARA TEHRANI NIA
Nationality: Iranian
City, Country of Residence: Tehran, Iran

My life is full of anxiety, in my works I focus on changes that can penetrate into bodies of any live creature, affect to its smallest cell, life, evolution and survival, to experience completely different identity. My artworks are organic figures that even with ecosystem reconstruction, they had a strange deformation.

“Mokushin Kanshitsu” Sculpture Works

NATSUKI TAKAHASHI
Nationality: Japanese
City, Country of Residence: Nara, Japan

奈良県宇陀市室生の森より自ら木を運び出し、広葉樹から針葉樹まで様々な種類の木材で森の精霊や架空の生き物たちを制作。製作技法は漆と麻布を張り合わせ最後に金箔を施す木心乾漆（もくしんかんしつ）。

情報過多の時代において「最先端」と呼ばれる技術が我々人類にとって大切なものを失うきっかけとなっていることに疑問を感じ、立ち止まること、振り返ること、目には見えないものへ耳を傾けることを彫刻で表現している。

実は人間も自然界の一部で、人間と自然はもっと近くて密接な関係だった記憶が自分のどこか奥深くにあり、私たち人間が生きるということは、虫や動物が生きることと等しく、同じ目線なのだということを幼い頃から感じ、自然と一体になって暮らせるような意識をいつもどこかにもっていて、それを表現することが彫刻制作の動機となっている。

Takahashi carried trees out of the forest of Murou, Uda City, Nara Prefecture, and produced forest spirits and fictitious creatures from various types of wood, from hardwoods to conifers. Her production technique is called “Mokushin Kanshitsu” a dry lacquer technique first appearing in Japan during the Nara era, in which the wood surface is laminated with natural lacquer and linen cloth before finally applying gold leaf at the end. Takahashi’s work suggests that the technology we call “state-of-the-art” is causing us to lose what is important to humankind. In an era of information overload, her process and sculptures call for us to stop, look back, and listen to what is invisible.

Takahashi tells us: Human beings are also part of the natural world, and inside me is a deep memory, of a time where humans and nature were much closer to each other, and human beings were equals with insects and animals. From an early age, I carried this feeling inside of me, the consciousness that a life in harmony with nature is possible, somewhere. The motivation of my work in creating sculptures, is to express this feeling.

Natsuki’s works (in order):
「森の子」Moriko, 2018
「あなたがなるからわたしがいる」”I am because you are”, 2018
「芽吹き」”Sprout”, 2018
「誕生」”Birth”, 2020
「そして、それはいつか土へと」”And it will someday become soil”, 2020

Nahuales en la Ciudad

MIREYA CARRERA
Nationality: Mexicana
City, Country of Residence: Ciudad de México, México

Los nahuales son seres mágicos en algunas de las tradiciones mexicanas, son seres humanos que se convierten en animales. Algunos dicen que son malignos. Yo creo que son entidades buenas que nos recuerdan nuestro pasado donde se respetaba y se adoraba a los animales. Podríamos convivir con ellos en las ciudades, donde se ha perdido la magia. Podemos convivir respetando y amando toda forma de vida.

Nahuales are magical beings in some of the Mexican traditions, they are humans that can transform into anmals. Some say the are evil. I believe that they are good entities that remind us of our past where animals were respected and worshipped. We could live with them in the cities, where the magic has been lost. We can live together respecting and loving all life forms.

The Project of Jonah’s Fish

FERESHTEH ALAMSHAH
Nationality: Iranian
City, Country of Residence: Esfahan, Iran

In 2009, the Zayanderud (is the largest river of the Iranian Plateau in central Iran) was closed due to severe water shortages and mismanagement of water resources. This river, which passes through the city of Isfahan, is very important for people of this city and has a great role in providing agricultural water resources in this province. Gavkhoni wetland is the terminal basin of the Zayanderud, a wetland that has a very high environmental value and is the source of life of many animal and plant species. With the closure of Zayanderud, the lives of the people of East Isfahan, who are mostly dependent on agriculture through this river, have faced a great challenge. Also drastic changes and instability of the wetland ecosystem, seriously endangers the health of all plant and animal species and even people in the area.

From the very beginning of this tragedy, the people of Varzaneh ( is the capital city of Bon Rud District, in Isfahan County) whose lives are tied to the life of the wetland and Zayanderud, protested a lot and have made great efforts to rehabilitate the lagoon, which unfortunately has not yet achieved the desired result, and this valuable ecosystem is becoming more and more destroyed every day. As an artist whose large part of her artwork is mostly tied to environmental issues and events, I have been with the people of this region and have tried to convey the cry of the lagoon and the people to everyone through my artworks.

This video was made in the central and dry point of Gavkhoni Wetland, at a temperature of 40 degrees in summer, with the help of the residents and some sympathetic officials of Varzaneh city as inexperienced players or performers, performers with overall and ordinary life with a lot of environmental concerns and worries.

Requiem For Lost Plants

ALEXANDER KAYE AND ALICE YUAN ZHANG
Nationality: Polish-American and Chinese-American
City, Country of Residence: Los Angeles, CA, USA
akaye.world

Our wonder and awe of the natural environment is intrinsic to our empathy towards it, and it is something we as a society have started to lose grasp of. We are in an odd period of our humanity where we’ve invented technologies and ways of life with vast societal and environmental implications but have yet to truly wrap our minds around the consequences of letting these new powers go unchecked. By raising awareness of the unparalleled natural beauty and complexities of our environment, we believe that we can start to re-establish modern-day empathy towards our natural habitats.

The goal for this project is to raise awareness of our ecological surroundings, and to gain a better understanding of the plants that we often take for granted in our everyday lives. In addition to participants being able to access this interactive project online and in AR filters, we would also like to schedule a Zoom or Twitch based discussion with the TNOC audience to discuss the future of our symbiotic relationship with the different plant species of our environment.

Virtual Nature

KUZMA ESZTER JÚLIA
Nationality: Hungarian
City, Country of Residence: Budapest, Hungary
behance.net/kuzmaeszterjulia

Because of the antropocene humanity realized our enstrangement of nature in a very large scale. For this phenomenon we reacted with an appreciation for the remained ecosystem. It started to become more valuable than ever before. Our attitude changes and we can look around more consciously. It is a big question, what is waiting for us, and how big disaster will be.

Virtual nature is a dystopic scene when science tries to replace nature. Hearing the creation of artificial intelligence, to find the real essence of existing it depends on the technological developments. Somehow we forget what it means to be human and after it self-evident “why” question appeared about our existing. The hologram illusion gives us a dreamlight sight. As we cannot handle climate emergency in the real intensity, because humanity feels uncomfortable in truth of the moment. It is easier to deny this situation than to face the extinction what is waiting for us.

The little plant, like a candle is shining in the space, in an empty one, where is nothing there only us and the plant. Where machines give life for a non-living being which seems a real one. The sense flooded by the installation reflects on the paradox mentioned above: we know what the truth is, however we try not to believe it. We are waiting for anybody under the shining veil of hope. The hologram plant includes the belief of life and the grief which connects humanity. We are watching in silence as that little plant flowering and after folding again. We are watching the failure of humanity too. Our planet is watching many civilizations ascends and mortality. The small living beings in the square fix sacral moments, where a way opens towards transcendence in the darkest times.