Danish Pavilion
- at the 59th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, 23 April – 27 November 2022
Pavilion of Denmark presents Uffe Isolotto’s We Walked the Earth, a drama of life and death, hope and despair, in a transhuman world inhabited by centaurs
For media enquiries, please contact:
Sutton Communications
Sara Kietzmann, sara@suttoncomms.com, M +44 (0) 7715 666 052
Carlotta La Tour, carlotta@suttoncomms.com, M +44 (0) 7525 117 036
For official installation images, photo crediting, Danish and English press releases, please click the link below.
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The Pavilion of Denmark at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia presents a total installation by Uffe Isolotto. We Walked the Earth invites audiences to step into a hyperrealistic world where elements from idyllic Danish farm life of the past blend with strange sci-fi phenomena from the future to create a haunting image of an uncertain present.
Occupying the entire Pavilion, We Walked the Earth presents an unexpected drama that revolves around a centaur family of three in a transhuman world. Visitors enter their home and encounter the inhabitants as they walk through the rooms containing their belongings, food and working tools. It is not obvious what has happened to them and the world they live in. The whole setting is haunted by a deep uncertainty. It is impossible to tell whether it is tragic or hopeful, or perhaps both.
While the centaurs at first seem strange, their struggle does not. Faced with the challenging realities of an ever-changing world, the family experiences a deep existential and ecological struggle. It’s the basic struggle of navigating a present that is becoming increasingly complex and unpredictable. Who do we become when the world we know no longer exists? Do we seek refuge in who we were, or do we look for escape routes in what we might become?
Best known for his works with physical and digital sculpture, We Walked the Earth emerges out of Isolotto’s enduring exploration into the intersections of the body and the machine and takes it to a new scale with this elaborate total installation.
Uffe Isolotto says, ”I am excited to present We Walked the Earth to visitors of the International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The installation brings humans and animals very close together, but only to show how torn between the past and the future we are at this present time in history, as well as the complexity of dealing with this much hope and despair.”
We Walked the Earth is curated by Jacob Lillemose and realised with the support of a group of collaborators who will contribute to the installation with: model work (10 Tons), taxidermy (Fyns Naturværksted), humanoid parts (Thomas Foldberg Studio), clothing and accessories (Anne Sofie Madsen), sculptural elements (Soft Baroque, Maria Koshenkova, Ida Hy), scenic painting (Christine Bechameil and Marie Søegaard Tarpø) and graphic design (Line-Gry Hørup).
Jacob Lillemose says, ”We Walked the Earth addresses an experience of being human in a time when human life is becoming more and more integrated into – if not inseparable – from contexts and processes that are both other-than-human and larger-than-human. Does that mean that we need to expand the notion of what it means to be human? That’s the fundamental question the installation asks.”
We Walked the Earth will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated short-story conceptualised collaboratively by Isolotto and Lillemose and written by Lillemose himself.
The Pavilion of Denmark is commissioned by the Danish Arts Foundation. Well-known from the Copenhagen art scene, Uffe Isolotto was appointed by the Danish Arts Foundation after an open-call procedure where proposals were welcomed from all interested Danish visual artists. With the selection of Uffe Isolotto, the Danish Arts Foundation continues its concept of arranging solo shows in the Danish Pavilion, which over the last four instalments of the Biennale Arte has featured presentations by Larissa Sansour (2019), Kirstine Roepstorff (2017), Danh Vo (2015) and Jesper Just (2013). Denmark has exhibited at La Biennale di Venezia since its conception in 1895.
ENDS
Enter the world of We Walked the Earth
@wewalkedtheearth
For media enquiries, please contact:
Sara Kietzmann, Sutton Communications, sara@suttoncomms.com, M +44 (0) 7715 666 052
Carlotta La Tour, Sutton Communications, carlotta@suttoncomms.com, M +44 (0) 7525 117 036