The multimedia exhibition ”Touch Nature” showcases international artists and their takes on the devastating political, economic, ecological and humanitarian consequences of the Anthropocene. It becomes quite clear in the process that, in addition to documenting grievances and formulating strategies of resistance, these artists also provide blueprints for utopias.
The economic exploitation of huge tracts of land, rising levels of soil sealing and the global effects of consumerism are addressed alongside the capitalist manipulation of waste. A series of cooperative ventures, some of which are interdisciplinary in character, results in art projects that deal with the global food situation, the spread of epidemics and the consequences of colonialism, aiming at a change of perspective. The exhibition develops encouraging visions of a new relationship between humanity and nature and of an approach to our environment marked by mindfulness and respect.
The exhibition is based on a series of exhibitions of the same name that were shown in twelve of Austria’s Forums of Culture in Europe and the United States between 2021 and 2024. This allowed Austrian artists to enter into a creative dialogue with artists of the host countries. The show at the Lentos presents a summary of this series of exhibitions and supplements it with international works of art. Its roughly 100 artists present a multinational overview of the current engagement with the climate crisis and the destruction of our environment. It is in the spirit of Alexander von Humboldt, a pioneer of ecological thinking, who famously wrote to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1810: “Nature must be felt.”
