Claudius Schulze, Traces of Fragility

2-6 June 2022
Kraftwerk Bille
In the frame of EXPANDED 8 Triennial of Photography Hamburg 2022

Worldwide, there are around nine million species of animals and plants. A million of them are threatened with extinction, it says in the latest report from the United Nations’ World Biodiversity Council. This is primarily a consequence of human interference in global ecosystems. The rise of homo sapiens goes hand in hand with our species’ increasing destruction of our natural environment and the fundamental conditions for life. Today, as the climate and extinction crisis accelerates, we construct bulwarks and intelligent machines, in hope of rescue.
The works by artist Claudius Schulze tell of these two related developments: global warming and species extinction on the one hand, and the creation of new landscapes and life forms through geo – engineering, artificial intelligence, and bionics on the other.

The exhibition Traces of Fragility, curated by Bettina Freimann, shows the delicate relationship between humans and nature, in a site – specific installation in the Kesselhalle at the Kraftwerk Bille.

Schulze juxtaposes photographs of bionic drones, historic and contemporary collections of insects, images of the wreckage left after the 2021 flood in Germany’s Ahr Valley, and laser surveys of urban biotopes with works conceived for this show, such as advertising banners featuring satellite images of the devastating consequences of natural disasters for the production of technology, a ton of hard coal from the Wedel power plant as a reminder of the early days of industrialization and anthropogenic environmental damage, or the deep-frozen cadavers of birds from the collection at the Museum of Nature Hamburg of the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change.
The show spreads out into the urban space, where 330 unique posters, merging the visual and sensory data from the FIDS Open Research Lab and AI – generated interpretations of it, are presented. From the causes and consequences of anthropogenic destruction to the fragility of the ecosystem, the role of the human being will be reexamined.

Links:
phototriennale.de/events/traces-of-fragility

Credits Aufnahmen: Claudius Schulze