We Are The Flood, a liquid platform on climate crisis, anthropogenic interactions & ecotransiction
"We Are the Flood" is a creative and interdisciplinary research, training and transformation platform on the climate crisis, anthropogenic interference and ecological transition implemented by a science museum, the MUSE of Trento (Italy).
Starting from water as a symbol of the climate crisis, “We Are the Flood” wants to trigger through emotions and the universality of art a change of perspective that can reflect on a global scale to imagine desirable futures.
National
Italy
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Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
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No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): MUSE - Museo delle Scienze Type of organisation: Other public institution First name of representative: Michele Last name of representative: Lanzinger Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Function: Director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Corso del Lavoro e della Scienza 3 Town: Trento Postal code: 38123 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 0461 270332 E-mail:michele.lanzinger@muse.it Website:http://www.muse.it
"We Are the Flood" is a creative and interdisciplinary research, training and transformation platform on the climate crisis, anthropogenic interference and ecological transition implemented by a science museum, the MUSE of Trento (Italy).
Starting from water as a symbol of the climate crisis, “We Are the Flood” wants to trigger through emotions and the universality of art a change of perspective that can reflect on a global scale to imagine desirable futures.
The project is based on the idea of a "we" which means being one with nature, and therefore a “we” that requires shared responsibilities and solutions. We are nature, the flood … but we can also be generators of resolutions.
As a meeting place between artistic expressions and scientific expertise, “We Are the Flood” always tries to break down the traditional museum and educational practices. Outreach moments are contemporary art exhibitions, the so-called "liquid exhibitions," in unconventional places such as archaeological sites, based on sustainability and the reuse of waste exhibit materials, with works by established artists and young artists involved through open calls in the spirit of inclusion. The highlight of the training experience was a masterclass taught by American Julie Reiss with the participation of 15 young people from different fields and educational levels, selected through open calls and supported in terms of expenses. Among the outcomes of the project, recognized by magazines such as Interni, Huffington Post and Artribune, are new original productions, such as the performance of Turkish-German artist Nezaket Ekici who literally reconnects with nature by immersing herself in a cold Alpine lake with ancient silt, and American Mary Mattingly, the first artist selected for a residency at MUSE, who created "Lacrima" referring to the local Alpine issue of the disappearance of glaciers.
Contemporary art
Science
Education
Interdisciplinarity
Transformation
Reusing waste materials used in previous projects and setups and stored in the museum warehouse is the most tangible effect of the attitude of “We Are the Flood” aimed at breaking down the rigid museum practices, which traditionally repeat themselves according to predetermined patterns without taking into account the current moment. The project chose to recover technical materials such as panels and structures, functional objects such as display cases, seats, light boxes, and technological audiovisual tools such as screens and projectors, often unused such as directional sound systems. At the same time, to avoid shipping work, the project asked artists to contribute with video, photographic, sound or performance documentation. In this way, the goal of reducing the impact and costs of “We Are the Flood” initiatives and exhibitions - called Liquid for their agile nature - has been achieved.
Sustainability is, therefore, the protagonist of “We Are the Flood” in terms of practical method but also of content, being the main subject of the training sessions, masterclasses, exhibitions, exhibited works, and research of the artists and scholars of art invited. The issues addressed so far include in detail the following themes:
Sharing Agency with the Non-Human World; Dissolving Boundaries Between Humans and Nature; “Slow Violence” and Environmental Justice; The “Toxic Sublime” and the Post-Human Landscape.
The universal language par excellence of art is the main ingredient of the “We Are the Flood” project as an ideal medium to act as a translator and interpreter of scientific data, to stimulate thought; emotions that lead us to change our perspectives and habits, to face, distil and make perceptible epochal challenges and imagine desirable futures.
Instead of looking at forms of art that reduce their aesthetic capabilities to adhere to the austerity and solidity of science, “We Are the Flood” leverages art to move from science to co-science, where that prefix means together, wanting to trigger reflections and a shared feeling around issues that concern us and that concern the future. As scientific data suffer media overexposure, it is even more urgent to pay attention to the narration to users.
So the project engaged the contemporary art professionals without mediation, in person, directly: the artists, first of all, active in various fields, from performance to sound to video art, art historians, critics and curators. The protagonists of the art world helped disseminate the project at different levels, exhibiting their works in fluid exhibitions, holding masterclasses, testing themselves in comparison with scientists during artist-in-residence and thinking of new installations and performance works born from this dialogue. We remember some of the names involved: art historian Julie Reiss, who held a masterclass showing a selection of art that speaks of the Anthropocene, artist Mary Mattingly invited as an artist in residence, Nezaket Ekici, among the favourite students of Marina Abramovic, who did an unprecedented performance, and then, the Australian Janet Laurence, the Spanish Eugenio Ampudia, the Belgian Hans Op de Beeck.
The project “We Are the Flood” offered young and very young people of different educational levels and backgrounds the opportunity for training based on the principle of inclusion and interdisciplinarity. Young people still studying at the academy, university students of cultural heritage, PhD students, and trained scholars, alongside artists and curators, participated in the masterclass together. The effectiveness of this approach was tangible in the cohesion that formed during the full immersion, which continued in ongoing mutual attendance and exchange. Another result saw artists under 35 chosen to exhibit next to big names of contemporary art, offering them the growth opportunity in a virtuous circle capable of raising excellence, forming their research and careers. The criteria of beauty and innovation characterize the communication method of We Are the Flood. The desire to tell difficult things through a simple and immediate language, understandable by people with different cultural and educational backgrounds, is adopted both within the training moments, such as the masterclasses and in the explanations of the training moments based on the exhibition. The texts and captions that told the works were in Italian and English and, importantly, used a simple and immediate language, always explaining obscure words and topics. A website dedicated to the project allows the viewer free access to texts, images, and documentation videos. The training and inclusion objectives are therefore also pursued online.
The involvement of beneficiaries has developed at different levels, going beyond conventional places, using the method of open calls and providing continuous public moments, that sometimes became participatory.
“We Are the Flood” decided to reach an audience as vast as possible: the general audience as well as those interested in art and science, leaving conventional art locations and entering a science museum, an archaeological space (for the second liquid show) and going outdoors on a high mountain lake (for Nezaket Ekici's performance, or Mary Mattingly residency).
Open calls for young people under 35 is the engaging method for a liquid exhibition and participation in the masterclass "Art and Anthropocene". The diffusion of the calls was done online through the museum's channels and specialized sites, and the response was very satisfying in terms of quantity and quality.
Finally, there were continuous public moments. A first masterclass intended as a dialogue between scientist and artist took place at the opening of the second liquid show, a scientist from the museum was present at all public occasions of the project, and art historian Julie Reiss, who held the masterclass, was also the protagonist of a conference, always in dialogue with an artist and a scientist.
The subjects involved in “We Are the Flood” have always been approached in person, without mediation, without resorting to borrowing works from galleries and collectors, but through a fresh dialogue and a continuous and constructive exchange, open to new productions, which, together with the high level of the artists already present at biennials around the world, undoubtedly represent the added value of the project.
The direct collaborations with artists have spanned, in addition to the regional level, mainly at the European level, with participation from Belgium, Spain, Germany, and internationally, with artists based in the USA, Australia, Israel, and even Kyrgyzstan.
Planning the project, the museum involved a local artist who stood out for his sensitivity to the themes of sustainability and interdisciplinarity, Stefano Cagol. He, in turn, created a board of research advisors composed of international personalities in the art world, museum directors, curators, and founders of art initiatives active in the field of artistic research in unconventional places and attentive to the themes of sustainability and the environment.
Implementing the project, we then interacted with other museum institutions in the area, such as a subterranean archaeological space of Tridentum and other museums in the Muse network, such as the Lake Ledro Pile-dwelling Museum, in a dialogue between past and future, humanity and environment.
Interdisciplinarity between science and art, first and foremost, and then between different areas of museology and artistic education is the basis of the project. Scientists and artists have interacted directly and without mediation around the themes of environmental sustainability in formal and informal situations, open to the public and for training and research. Artists have been allowed to enter the backrooms of scientific research, and museum people have been able to break out of the routine of traditional museum programming. Art and science, and different operational areas of art, from artistic production to curation and criticism, have also been discussed in masterclasses, where participants have brought a wide range of knowledge to the table, such as artificial intelligence, sound art, and filmmaking.
"We Are the Flood" is a project of training, research, and reflection wanted by scientists and artists through the participation of scientists and artists to trigger a paradigm shift into pubblic perception of ecological crisis. To do so the training and transformation programme employed a wide array of formats usually selected as a single tool in other mainstream projects, but in we are the flood were used as pieces of a puzzle to tackle the wicked issues of acting now for a desirable Anthropocene: masterclasses, exhibitions, performance, artistic residencies, conferences, online communication and paper publication were all used to empower and building capacities of young creatives interested in putting their art at the service of ecological transformation.
“We Are the Flood” is based on emotions beyond scientific data. Art is the protagonist both when it is exhibited to the public and when it is the subject of analysis conducted by art and science professionals to stimulate new projects and visions.
So education takes place both directly through master classes and lectures and through the experience of exhibitions, installations, performances and participatory interventions. The idea of a Museum could be offered to the local creative community as place for research, collection, conservation, interpretation, exhibition of tangible and intangible heritage for sustainability, education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing is both at the centre of the new ICOM museum definition and in line with the most recent museology ideas in reshaping the museums role for the Anthropocene (e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359674421_The_Covid-19_Pandemic_and_the_Inescapable_Challenge_of_the_Anthropocene_for_Museums). "We Are the flood" is a training and transformation programme that tried to embody this theoretical new perspective form museums and thus could be replicated at world level in museums of all scale and discipline.
"We Are the Flood" is based on emotions as well as on scientific data. Art is a protagonist both when it is shown to the public and when it is analyzed by art and science operators to stimulate new projects and new visions. The training takes place both directly through the creation of masterclasses and conferences, and through the exhibition, installation, and performance experience. An emergent and unexpected peer to peer training emerged among the young artists and curators that were involved in the project and started spontaneous exchanges among them because of the common interests and common ecperiences they had participanting to the We Are The Flood platform.
"We Are the Flood" has water in its DNA. It is a symbol linked to the Alps and the disappearance of glaciers because the project is based in the alpine region of Trentino. “We Are the Flood” proposes a paradigm shift triggered by the emotions unleashed by art to address the problem of ecological and climate crisis through a holistic point of view. It is a change of perspective that aims to become generalized and global and is a response to the epochal challenges of thinking about desirable futures.
The project has achieved public success engaging directly 3,600 visitors at the two liquid exhibitions and about 50 creatives, artists, curators, and enthusiasts who actively participated in masterclasses, seminars, and performances. Additionally, the project has received positive reviews in national magazines such as Interni, Huffington Post, and Artribune, and on television channels such as Rai and RTTR.
“We Are the Flood” has implemented a transformation of the usual practice of a science museum by representing an exemplary experience. Among the outcomes are a book (Ed. Postmedia, Milan, expected release: April 2023) on the theory and practice of this science museum project with contemporary art; a collection of artworks on sustainability including those presented in the exhibitions and specifically created; a permanent installation as a result of the artist-in-residence (Mary Mattingly, presentation expected for the International Water Day on March 22, 2023); the selection of a project to be realized as a public installation among those proposed by the 15 young participants of the Julie Reiss' masterclass.
We Are the Flood, which began in 2022 and is ongoing in 2023, has therefore demonstrated to be a generative and proactive model of an innovative and contemporary way of being a museum in the service of change.
"We Are The Flood" contributes to developing new competencies in the context of the European framework on sustainability: providing a high-level opportunity to learn about the green transition and sustainable development towards a large museum audience and art students and professionals community in a not-formal and informal context; creating a supportive learning platform for sustainability that spans all activities and operations of the museum; enabling a training and transformation programme that is hands-on, interdisciplinary and relevant to local and global contexts. "We Are The Flood" actively involved art students, museum staff, and the research and innovation community in learning for sustainability, providing fact-based and accessible information on the climate, environmental and biodiversity crisis and its drivers.
