Dennis Siering at Kunstverein Braunschweig

Artist: Dennis Siering

Exhibition title: Unnatural Territories

Curated by: Jule Hillgärtner

Venue: Kunstverein Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany

Date: December 2, 2023 – February 25, 2024

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Kunstverein Braunschweig

While just under 2 million tons of plastic were produced worldwide every year in the 1950s, this amount has risen to around 400 million tons annually today. Due to its extremely long shelf life, it can be assumed that all plastics ever produced will continue to exist on our planet. Instead of decomposing, plastic breaks down over time into increasingly smaller particles, down to so-called micro- and nanoplastics, which are particles smaller than 5mm.

In his artistic practice, Dennis Siering deals with possible and actual scenarios of the substantial change of the earth due to the industrial age. His constantly changing and expanding online platform pyroplastics.org, developed in collaboration with numerous experts and collaborators, brings together research, videos, speculative visions and scenarios, as well as photographs and links to plastic waste that, over time, takes on the appearance of natural stones, “pyroplastics”, due to maritime weather conditions and accumulates in coastal regions.

At the same time, Siering explores landscape scenarios in the age of the Anthropocene and combines natural materials with synthetic ones and the raw aesthetics of industrial production. His works present possible future models of landscapes. What at first glance looks like questionable visions of the future has in some respects long since become the inescapable, oppressive reality of our present: the effects of human activity have long since become part of our environment in the form of anthropogenic pollution, even if one could almost overlook them due to their ever decreasing volume over time as a result of natural abrasion. But they are there. Everywhere. And for an incalculably long time.

As part of his exhibition Unnatural Territories at the Kunstverein Braunschweig, Dennis Siering places artistic works from the past five years in an overarching context. The combination of installations, sculptures and video works develops its very own dramaturgy, which completely takes over the ground floor of the Villa Salve Hospes.

Dennis Siering (*1983, Solingen) studied fine arts at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach am Main and at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Prof. Wolfgang Luy, Prof. Susanne M. Winterling and Prof. Hubert Kiecol. He lives and works in Frankfurt am Main. His most recent exhibitions include: Plastic World, curated by Martina Weinhart, Schirnkunsthalle Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main (2023); Hausputz! Und andere Visionen für das Museum Kurhaus Kleve, with Blockadia* Tiefsee, Museum Kurhaus Kleve (2023); Cassandra Complex, curated by Adriana Blidaru, Produktions- und Ausstellungsplattform basis e.V., Frankfurt am Main (2022); Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, Studio Naxos, Frankfurt am Main (2022); iepa #04, with Pauline Castra, curated by Christin Müller and Felix Ruhöfer, basis e.V. Ausstellungshaus, Frankfurt am Main (2020); Assisted Survival, Mountains, Berlin (2020); and No Maps for These Territories, Tiefsee Artspace, Offenbach (2019). In addition to numerous other scholarships and grants, he most recently received the Neustart Kultur Stipendium from Stiftung Kunstfonds, Bonn (2022); the Jahresstipendium from Stiftung Künstlerhilfe Frankfurt (2021); the Arbeitsstipendium from Stiftung Kunstfonds, Bonn (2021); and the Projektstipendium from Hessische Kulturstiftung (2020).

Dennis Siering, Planetary Memory (Mnemonic Agent #1), 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023. Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Dennis Siering, Untitled (It’s 4:18 a.m.), 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Dennis Siering, Unnatural Territories, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Dennis Siering, Resources, 2020, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Dennis Siering, In Psychic Defense, 2020, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Dennis Siering, Unnatural Territories, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Dennis Siering, Archaeologies of Waste (Second Landscapes), 2022, (Detail) Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Dennis Siering, Archaeologies of Waste (Second Landscapes), 2022, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Dennis Siering, Unnatural Territories, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Dennis Siering, aus der Serie Vertical Memory, seit 2018 (fortlaufend), Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Dennis Siering, Unnatural Territories, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Dennis Siering, Speculative Landscapes: Prototypes for a Second Nature, 2022, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Dennis Siering, Externalities, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Dennis Siering, Landscapes of Excess (Archive Excerpt I), 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark