Greening

Reflecting on the role of the arts, design and technology in an environment of turbulence

This first show at Foamlab is probably a world premiere. From the collection of the Dutch artist Jan Dietvorst a group of six mask costumes known as Jipae and Doroe are shown together. In any anthropological collection shown world wide in museums you might see one or two of these Asmat artifacts, but a group of six is unheard of. A group like this would come together in an ‘Adoption feast’ where the relationships in family life are restored after the death of a family member.

Filmmaker Jan Cornelis Mol (1891-1954) was a pioneer of time-lapse photography, using it to record the tiny lives of micro-organisms. He wanted to show in film what otherwise would be visible only to the most tenacious gaze through a microscope. In this way the public was plunged into the life inside a droplet of water or sucked-up into the bloodstream of a frog. A highlight in his work are the images of crystallisation. Using common photographic chemicals his recordings under great magnification of the crystallisation processes revealed wonderful abstract patterns.

Biologists, artists and Sanctuary supporters are among the participants in the Spiegelaer event at Foamlab. They are hurtled head-first into the rain-forest canopy during this research report by Theun Karelse on a fieldtrip to the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary. A incomplete but detailed introduction of the workings of the rain-forest, plants and parts of plants is paralleled by the hypnogotic vision of the forest in the work of cineast Werner Herzog and his work with a navigable balloon in South America.

The ever-growing Libarynth is exactly what its name implies – a hybrid between a library and a labyrinth, a maze of pages in various stages of completion. FoAM's collaborators and friends use the Libarynth as their research diary, sketch-book, or activity log. Some pages are valuable references, on a variety of topics; from visual programming, to inflatables and even vegetarian-friendly restaurants around the world. Others are fully-fledged research reports, or concept documents.

A long, long time ago, in the valley of the river Rhine, a young woman by the name of Hildegard von Bingen had a vision. She named it Viriditas. In one of her elated raptures, she experienced the power of a greening force, able to give life, offer solace and regenerate the world. Viriditas is a botanical, vegetative agency present in every being as the 'green side of the mind'. It enables deep connections between individual entities and the living environments around them.