Artist: Andrea Zucchini
Exhibition title: Foresight by Earth
Venue: Tenderpixel, London, UK
Date: June 22 – July 30, 2016
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist, Tenderpixel and Original&theCopy
Andrea Zucchini’s work most often explores the relationship between humans and the natural environment that surrounds them. Through the process of pairing inherited rituals, historical artefacts of ancient societies with our era of space exploration and digital reproduction, Zucchini reveals objects as carriers of human knowledge throughout history. In Foresight by Earth, objects have become vessels for various temporalities and signification; their ancestral powers and related craftsmanship have been commonly accumulated and are tightly linked to us and our future.
Zucchini’s distinctive approach in experimenting with materials is central in this new body of work. Creating a specific atmosphere, a total environment through the use of sound and sand stretching across the gallery, the experimental installation guides visitors through a rather zen setting referencing eastern architecture. The textural element of sand extends from the floor, through the flow of virtual data to a wall panel depicting the surface of Mars, while a wide variety of cast bronze nuts, seed pods, mushrooms and leafs populate the space and repeat throughout the exhibition. The replicas of Aztec mushroom stones engage with the central theme of authorship, further explored in the video. Zucchini’s work draws parallels in between the contemporary approach to digital reproduction and a past where the object-maker could be forever unknown, unrecognised. Depicting an abandoned post-human landscape, both familiar and strange, a mirage of a digital replica of an artefact dominates the experience: like the other objects created for this exhibition, it is launched into future, defying time and space restrictions to reframe human’s role and position in relation to Earth.
Andrea Zucchini, Microcosm, 2016
Duvet, cast bronze seeds and incense bowl
Andrea Zucchini, Preservation of Potential, 2016
Cast bronze seed pods
Andrea Zucchini, Microcosm, 2016
Duvet, cast bronze seeds and incense bowl
Andrea Zucchini, Twice Born, 2016
Hand carved cobalt replicas of Mesoamerican artefacts
Andrea Zucchini, Twice Born, 2016 (detail)
Hand carved cobalt replicas of Mesoamerican artefacts
Andrea Zucchini, Twice Born, 2016 (detail)
Hand carved cobalt replicas of Mesoamerican artefacts
Andrea Zucchini, Preservation of Potential, 2016
Cast bronze seed pods
Andrea Zucchini, To those who only eat what has been dried by the sun, 2016
Cast bronze nuts, mushrooms and kale.
Andrea Zucchini, To those who only eat what has been dried by the sun, 2016
Cast bronze nuts, mushrooms and kale.
Andrea Zucchini, To those who only eat what has been dried by the sun, 2016
Cast bronze nuts, mushrooms and kale
Andrea Zucchini, Foresight by Earth, 2016
Hand carved cobalt, water
Andrea Zucchini, Foresight by Earth, 2016
Hand carved cobalt, water
Andrea Zucchini, Born in a Pot, 2016
HD CGI animation, stereo sound, 12’10”
Andrea Zucchini, Born in a Pot, 2016
HD CGI animation, stereo sound, 12’10”
Andrea Zucchini, Born in a Pot, 2016 (video excerpt)
HD CGI animation, stereo sound, 12’10”
