Lhola Amira, “IRMANDADE: The Shape of Water in Pindorama,” 2018-2020, HD video, single channel sound, film still. Image courtesy of SMAC Gallery, copyright Lhola Amira.
Aug. 9 – Dec. 8, 2024
Oppenheimer, Thompson and Anonymous Galleries, First Floor
Free and Open to the Public
Aug. 9 | 6 p.m.
Joint Artists’ Talk and Opening Reception
Actions for the Earth: Art, Care & Ecology, Gabriel Mills
Emilio Villalba: Everything is Something
Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College
Actions for the Earth: Art, Care & Ecology is a traveling exhibition that considers how artistic practices use kinship, healing and restorative intervention to foster a deeper consciousness of our interconnectedness with the earth. This exhibition turns to a group of interdisciplinary artists to engage with the overlapping, worldwide crises of our time. Ongoing climate change entrenched social inequity, and renewed concerns over public health have all underscored the need for approaches that take on global responsibilities while caring for our local environment. For decades, artists have sought to find new antidotes to oppressive structures of power, and promoted greater understanding of the many ways that nature, health and sustainability are intertwined.
Actions for the Earth presents the work of eighteen intergenerational artists and collectives who place action, instruction, reciprocity and exchange at the forefront of their practices. By sharing their participatory artistic interventions and healing strategies alongside research in ecology, science and ancient beliefs, these artists remind us that we are connected within a constellation of living networks, inseparable from the planet and its environments. Artworks on view create space for the honoring of ancestors, foreground the significance of Indigenous knowledges, and engage in speculative imaginings through science fiction and network science—organic, digital and spiritual.
In its curatorial approach, Actions for the Earth acts as a resource for studying our current times. The works on view not only emphasize themes of learning, care, and intimacy, but offer concrete knowledge by inviting the public to participate in actions such as instruction-based meditation and deep listening activities. The life of these works, and the interventions they propose, extends far beyond the scope of the exhibition to engage people in their personal contexts.
Artists: Ackroyd and Harvey, Lhola Amira, Arahmaiani, Sayan Chanda, Hylozoic/Desires (Himali Singh Soin & David Soin Tappeser), lololol, Ana Mendieta, Zarina Muhammad, Patrina Mununggurr, Pauline Oliveros, Yoko Ono, Tabita Rezaire, Eric-Paul Riege, Cecilia Vicuña, Katie West and Zheng Bo.
Actions for the Earth: Art, Care & Ecology is a traveling exhibition curated by Sharmila Wood and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York. Lead funding is provided by the Hartfield Foundation as part of an initiative to support ICI’s commitment to new curatorial voices who will shape the future of the field, and ICI’s Curatorial Intensive alumni as they move through the stages of their career. Actions for the Earth is made possible with the generous support of ICI’s Board of Trustees and International Forum.
Learn more about this exhibition at nermanmuseum.org.
