Lucy + Jorge Orta | Amazonia
06 October 2010 - 12 December 2010
Natural History Museum London, Solo Exhibition
UK
Lucy + Jorge Orta’s current exhibition Amazonia is based on the expedition the artists made to the Peruvian rainforest in July 2009. Commissioned by the Natural History Museum contemporary art program as part of the International Year of Biodiversity, the exhibition opening coincides with the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, October 2010.
The new works on exhibition include: Collection: Aepyornis, Gallimimus, Allosaurus, Pelaeomastodon intricate porcelain casts of dinosaur fossils from the museum’s palaeontology department and Bones three larger than life iridescent aluminum bone sculptures. Madre de Dios - Fluvial Intervention Unit a ‘Noah’s Arc’ pirogue crammed with hundreds of tiny animals reflected into infinity. Amazonia a memorising diptych video-audio projection which covers the walls of the Jerwood Gallery, and Perpetual Amazonia S12 48 21.6 W71 24 17.6 a series of stunning large format photographs referencing the diversity of flora around the world, marked with the UTM coordinates of a hectare of land in the Amazon that the artists are hoping to save into perpetuity.
During their expedition Lucy + Jorge Orta assisted eco-scientists with their species collection, sketching, photographing and filming the flora and fauna they encountered along their journey. Reflecting on some of the ecosystems they encountered, they found the rainforest to be a beautiful oasis of diversity, in a state of crisis. As with many of their projects, the artists hope that their artworks will conceptually stake out the terrain of our relationship to nature and its value to us - restoring our focus to the world around us, both its beauty and its imperilled state.
The new works on exhibition include: Collection: Aepyornis, Gallimimus, Allosaurus, Pelaeomastodon intricate porcelain casts of dinosaur fossils from the museum’s palaeontology department and Bones three larger than life iridescent aluminum bone sculptures. Madre de Dios - Fluvial Intervention Unit a ‘Noah’s Arc’ pirogue crammed with hundreds of tiny animals reflected into infinity. Amazonia a memorising diptych video-audio projection which covers the walls of the Jerwood Gallery, and Perpetual Amazonia S12 48 21.6 W71 24 17.6 a series of stunning large format photographs referencing the diversity of flora around the world, marked with the UTM coordinates of a hectare of land in the Amazon that the artists are hoping to save into perpetuity.
During their expedition Lucy + Jorge Orta assisted eco-scientists with their species collection, sketching, photographing and filming the flora and fauna they encountered along their journey. Reflecting on some of the ecosystems they encountered, they found the rainforest to be a beautiful oasis of diversity, in a state of crisis. As with many of their projects, the artists hope that their artworks will conceptually stake out the terrain of our relationship to nature and its value to us - restoring our focus to the world around us, both its beauty and its imperilled state.