With the installation ‘Eruption’ LOLA Landscape Architects bursts through the floor of Kunsthal KAdE. For the exhibition ‘Abrasive Paradise’ twelve contemporary artists and designers are invited to reflect upon the utopian ideal of a makeable world, within a world that turns out to be anything but makeable. In the main hall of the museum ‘Eruption’ is a floor-filling street garden that bursts out of the pavement. The presentation is completed with a selection of works by artists, such as Michael Raedecker, Armando and Sanam Khatibi, that each visualizes a paradoxical paradise.
The paradise is an idealised landscape, a projection of desires. It provides in abundance what the everyday landscape lacks. While this was originally food, water and security, a new shortage has arisen in Western urban societies: contact with nature. For a long time, the resulting longing for nature was a reason to travel far, but this is slowly making way for a local and collective alternative. The city is being broken open and facade, roof and food gardens are emerging everywhere. Our security is also threatened in a new and more fundamental way: by the climate. Embankment, afforestation and rewilding are important in the fight against global warming.
The new paradise lies beneath the pavement. Nature bursts out of an urban floor. In this eruption of primeval nature, ferns and tree ferns grow. Plants that were already present in the Netherlands 300 million years ago and whose remains form the basis for today’s fossil fuels. They take CO2 from the atmosphere and cool the earth with it.
The exhibition Abrasive Paradise at Kunsthal KAdE is open for public till July 3 2022.
Eruption
Design: LOLA Landscape Architects
I.c.w.: Sander van Noort, Lennart de Neef
Museum: Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort (NL)
Curators: Robbert Roos, Lara Stolwerk, Judith van Meeuwen
Photos: Mike Bink Fotografie