With Sophie Erlund, Asana Fujikawa, Andrea Éva Győri, Lena Anouk Philipp, Simon Speiser, Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle, Urara Tsuchiya in collaboration with Anna Tanner
+ screening of Beth Stephens' & Annie Sprinkle's "Goodbye Gauley Mountain - An Ecosexual Love Story" (02 February 2019)
Let’s imagine love affairs between humans and non-human organisms. Are they dark and twisted? Tender and sweet or hot and steamy? Who’s dominant, who’s submissive? And what emerges from this coupling?
As our world becomes increasingly high-tech, with ever cleaner and smoother surfaces, we celebrate artificiality while ruining our environment en passant. The more estranged we feel from nature, the more we idealize it. We need to reconnect. And is there a better way to do so than through the sensual? Because in the end, we are nature and nature is us, and we’re all dirty.
FINGER MY FERN dwells in the desires that the non-human living world invokes in us and follows the fantasies we project onto it.
Sophie Erlund (*1978) is a Danish born artist living and working in Berlin. She researches architecture as a synonym for the human body and mind, creating sculptures, installations and complex soundscapes, which deal with the central theme of transition and understanding the world through the irrational mind. Erlund’s work has been exhibited in galleries and institutions across Europe and the US. She received a BA of Fine Art with Honours from Central St. Martins College of Art and Design (London) in 2003 and has been working in Berlin since. Sophie Erlund is represented by PSM gallery in Berlin and is currently planning a new large scale installation to be featured in the 2020 Socle du Monde Biennale in Herning, Denmark.
Asana Fujikawa (*1981 in Tokyo) studied European Art and Teaching at Nagoya Zokei University in Aichi, Japan, from 1999 to 2003, where she graduated with a diploma. In 2016 she received her Masters degree in Fine Arts at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg. In 2017, a work and residence scholarship followed in the Künstlerhaus Stadttöpferei Neumünster. Towards the end of her studies, Fujikawa began to translate her graphic prints into ceramics. She deals with Japanese and European mythology as well as the folk tales of the region in which she lives. Asana Fujikawa lives and works in Hamburg.
Andrea Éva Győri (*1985 in Budapest) studied Fine Arts at Hungarian University of Fine Arts in Budapest and Video/Performance/Sculpture/Installation at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Stuttgart in the classes of Christian Jankowski, Mike Bouchet, Felix Ensslin. Győri is artist in residence at Jan Van Eyck Multiform Institute for Fine Art and Reflection - Residency Program - Maastricht, The Netherlands (2017-2018); at SeMA NaNJI Residency Program for Art - Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul Korea (2015); in 2019 she will be artist in residence with a one year fellowship at Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral, Bad Ems, Germany. Győri has presented her work at international institutions, including Haus der Kunst, Munich; Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, Middelburg, NL, (solo show); MANIFESTA 11, Löwenbräukunst Zürich; Grimmuseum, Berlin (solo show).
Lena Anouk Philipp studied from 2010 to 2014 with Michael Krebber and Christa Näher at Städelschule in Frankfurt/Main. She presented her work, a.o. at Basis e.V. in Frankfurt/Main, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Opelvillen in Rüsselsheim and MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main. From March 2019 she will take part in the studio program of Kölnischer Kunstverein.
Elizabeth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle are two ecosexual artists-in-love who have been collaborating with each other, and with various international communities, for 11 years. They created a new field of research, ‘Sexecology,‘ exploring the places where sexology and ecology intersect in our culture – in art, theory, practice and activism. Their ecosex performance art weddings have involved thousands of collaborators and participants in eight countries. They also do Sexecological Walking Tours, visual art installations, and have made a film about mountaintop removal coal mining destruction in Appalachia called Goodbye Gauley Mountain—An Ecosexual Love Story. Stephens is a professor of art at UCSC and a Ph.D. candidate in performance studies at UC Davis. Sprinkle is a popular visiting artist who holds a Ph.D. in human sexuality.
Simon Speiser (*1988 in Regensburg, DE) studied Fine Arts at ABK Stuttgart and at Städelschule Frankfurt/Main, with Christian Jankowski, Alexander Roob, Willem de Rooij, Michael Krebber and Mark von Schlegell. He took part in several group and solo shows in institutions, galleries and project spaces including Frankfurter Kunstverein, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, Alexander Levy, Croy Nielsen, Robert Grunenberg, Oracle Berlin and MMCA Seoul. In his practice he develops fictional concepts and ideas that merge nature and technology. This often brings various disciplines into dialogue, ranging from writing, sculpture and installation to printing video and VR.
Urara Tsuchiya (*1979 in Japan) lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. Tsuchiya works mainly with performance, video, and live events, often incorporating soft sculpture, costumes, ceramics and home cooking. These function as props to set up an alternate environment for out of the ordinary behaviours to take place. Solo shows include ‘Urara Tsuchiya’, Trade Gallery, Nottingham (2017); ‘Room Service’, Union Pacific, London (2016) and ‘Connoisseurs world’, Queen’s Park Railway Club, Glasgow, Scotland (2015). Group shows include ‘Amazing girls/ its complicated’, Kevin Space, Vienna (2017); ‘Circus between Worlds’, Caledonian Church, (2016) and ‘Neopagan Witch Bitch’, Evenly Yard, London (2016).
