EDGE EFFECTS: Natural Movements at Farreras Edge

Edge Effects, natural movements on the edge of Farrera, is an exhibition featuring the work of artists Anna Rubio, Quelic Berga, Joanès Simon-Perret, Kati Gausmann, Nabb+Teeri, Tuula Närhinen, and Tracey Warr.

It is curated by Lluís Llobet, Lluís Sabadell Artiga, Pere Báscones and Marta Prunera.

For there to be natural movements, you need three essential elements: energy, time and material. The occurrence of these movements pours out in constant transformations, evolving in a set direction. They constitute an unfolding of energy which, as time goes by, leaves imprints in the material.

The evolution of the biosphere, in time and in a complex network, has permitted many species, such as now our own, to exist. At a certain time and place in the biosphere, a living being accumulates the biological knowledge that has permitted it to arrive here after millions of years of experience and selection. A being of our human species, moreover, includes all the layers of sediments lived through, both the obvious and the most subtle: his body, his territory, his culture, his character, memory, emotions, relationships, reasoning, awareness, attitude…

Here and now, individually and collectively, is a moment of doubt about where we are and where we are going. How are we confronting the environmental crisis over the relationship between our species and the biosphere that surrounds us? And from our daily activity, how can artistic creation contribute to our reaching this environmental equilibrium, as well as its social and economic ancillaries?

The on-line exhibition, Natural Movements on the Edge of Farrera, gathers together the work of eight artists who passed through the Centre for Art and Nature via the European programme, Frontiers in Retreat. As a working residency for artists and researchers that springs up and grows in a tiny village in the High Catalan Pyrenees, the restless movement of creators and researchers is already a natural phenomenon in our local biosphere. The challenge we have as a global society is to reach a way of living and of social organization that is both harmonious and sustainable. From this tiny place and our humble activity we share with you these reflections made by the artists themselves.

Thanks to Quelic, Kati, Janne, Maria, Tuula, Anna, Joanès and Tracey, for your contributions!

This exhibition has been shaped by 8 areas defined by diverse attitudes, states of mind or directly, by actions that the artists propose in order to confront these new challenges:

1// To understand nature and learn from it
2// To re-naturalise our lives
3// To reduce the impact of our footprint
4// To play in order to grow and be happy
5// To listen to the spirit of the place
6// To live in the here and now, and let ourselves be surprised
7// To cultivate a universal awareness
8// To come closer to new paradigms