Eco-Visionaries / Jochen Lempert: Sudden Spring

Eco-Visionaries
June 15–October 21, 2018

The works in Eco-Visionaries present alternative approaches to, and ideas about the relationship between human beings and the environmental, social and mental ecologies—systems that are intrinsically linked and interactive. The participating artists propose more sustainable attitudes towards the place of human beings on this earth.

The exhibition includes video works, drawings, sound work, books and installations by Ursula Biemann (b. 1955, Switzerland) and Paulo Tavares (b. 1980, Brazil), Carolina Caycedo (b. 1978, United Kingdom), the international group Futurefarmers, Marjetica Potrč (b. 1953, Slovenia), Samuel Roturier (b. 1982, France), Erik Sjödin (b. 1979, Sweden), Leena Valkeapää (b. 1964, Finland) and Oula-Antti Valkeapää (b. 1970, Finland) and Elin Már Øyen Vister (b. 1976, Norway).

The book Eco-Visionaries was produced for the exhibition in a collaboration between Bildmuseet; MAAT in Lisbon; HeK in Basel; and LABoral in Gijón. With thanks to the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.
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Jochen Lempert: Sudden Spring
June 15–October 21, 2018

Since the early 1990s, artist Jochen Lempert has been working with black-and-white photography as his primary medium. Using an analogue 35-mm camera, he records flocks of birds, insects, ocean waves or the interplay of light and shadow on foliage. He also finds his subjects in densely populated urban environments. Many of the images in the exhibition were taken in the artist’s hometown of Hamburg.

In the exhibition space, Jochen Lempert displays his photographs without frames or other mountings. On close inspection, paradoxical and completely unexpected connections start to emerge between the images. By bringing motifs with common visual elements together, Lempert allows his subjects to initiate new, unexpected dialogues and thus opens up for new interpretations and associations.

Jochen Lempert (b. 1958) is living and working in Hamburg, Germany. His works have been shown over the world, but this is his first solo exhibition in the Nordic region. In 2017, Jochen Lempert received the prestigious Camera Austria Award for Contemporary Photography.
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John Akomfrah: Purple
Until September 16, 2018

Also on show at Bildmuseet this Summer: Purple is an immersive six-channel video installation addressing man’s relationship to nature and to the planet, created by the British artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah. At a time when greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are at historically high levels and glaciers are melting, Purple poses the question of human responsibility.

In this epic film work, John Akomfrah combines archival material with newly staged footage and a hypnotic sound score. The new film sequences were recorded in regions with particularly climate-sensitive ecosystems, such as Greenland, Alaska and the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia and at various sites around the UK. Combined with images and film clips from the 1940s to the present day, they form a multi-layered montage of politics, history, and fiction.

John Akomfrah (b. 1957 in Accra, Ghana) lives and works in London. He was one of the founders of the Black Audio Film Collective, a co-founder of Smoking Dogs Films, and has since the 90s pursued an individual and distinguished film practice. Purple was commissioned by the Barbican, London; Bildmuseet, Umeå; TBA21-Academy, Vienna; The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon.
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