Rewilding Curatorial Practice

Lecture for eremuak's Naturak symposium

17-19 October 2019

hosted by Azkuna Zentroa, Bilbao, Spain

The symposium welcomed established local and international guests (in alphabetical order): Ana Laura Aláez, Bik Van der Pol, Fernando García-Dory, Hidrogenesse, Latitudes (Max Andrews y Mariana Cánepa Luna), Yael Messer, Jon Otamendi, Sergio Prego, María Ptqk, Alfredo Puente (Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia), Borbála Soós, Julia Spínola, Natalia Valencia Arango, Idoia Zabaleta (Azala).

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Since its first editions, the annual eremuak symposia have been reflecting on art's present possible, both within the context of the Basque Country, as well as within a wider scope. In 2019 the symposium gathers certain sensibilities, attitudes, and manifestations that, reflect on our relationship with varied aspects of what has traditionally been called nature. From abandoning institutional spaces in search of revitalising, dedicated outdoor areas, to the inclusion of living organisms or processes in those spaces, the desire for externality seems evident.

However, being aware of the problem of this concept, eremuak's symposium around the notion of Naturak is an attempt to avoid reducing the chosen thematic focus to a song about certain simplifying attitudes on the inherent complexity of relationships between the human and non-human, the living and the inert, the artificial and the supposedly natural. Hence it is relevant to provide the root term of this plurality (the –k in naturak, or the –s in naturalezas), which allows to address diversity that is more in line with the reality of the art world and all of the natures that it produces or faces.