On the occasion of the first chapter of the Kin(d) Relations exhibition presented in 2022 at Transpalette, we explored an outdated dichotomy between Western notions of nature and culture. Two concepts that can no longer justify a hierarchy of living beings (dominated by humans) or a way of viewing nature as merely a resource available for human use. This new chapter of Kin(d) Relations offers an exploration of diverse artists’ thoughts on the (un)inhabitability of the earth.
Kin(d) Relations. The title of the exhibition combines the notion of kin (relations) developed by Donna Haraway and Édouard Glissant’s concept of Relation. The “d” in parentheses evokes other ideas: kind, in English, meaning both “kind” and “species.” Kin(d) Relations is thus conceived as a poly-ecosystem where human and more-than-human bodies mutually affect each other. Through the experience of the artworks, the exhibition highlights the ways we all affect one another—our interdependencies, the rhizomes and symbioses of our visible and invisible existences. Kin(d) Relations presents a culture of attentiveness, where humans are neither thought of as central nor at the top of a system. Instead, they act within their habitats just like all other species and entities. It is not about cohabitation, but rather the coexistence of an earthly community animated by multiple realities.
Inhabiting the earth may first mean inhabiting, as humans, our own daily ecosystems—our apartments, houses, tents, or cabins. Fleur Melbourn transfers an intimate filmed space into the art center to explore the power dynamics within our interiors. These dynamics give rise to moral values, norms, and dictates that assign and govern our bodies. Johanna Bruckner’s installation explores moments of desire between human and more-than-human beings through artificial intelligence.
Inhabiting the earth involves contamination due to our active presence. This is reflected in the works of Anaïs Dunn and Julie Vacher: the former addresses the chemical contamination of water, while the latter examines the formation of a continent of green algae caused by intensive pig farming in Brittany. Jumana Manna investigates agriculture, focusing on colonial thinking about land and seeds. Between Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, the artist testifies to the exploitation of living things for colonial and neoliberal purposes. Annelie Berner collects fragments of common vegetation (moss, small flowers, grasses, or ferns) to analyze the consequences of climate change.
Inhabiting the earth also means acting within one’s local environment, as Evor does. Since 2006, Evor has been cultivating a garden daily in a closed courtyard between buildings in Nantes. They maintain a vegetal space for contemplation and gentle coexistence. As we move through the exhibition, we encounter another type of “garden” in Paula Nishijima’s work. The artist presents a technological architectural module (Plug-in habitat) that enables the development of a living biotope. Dorotea Dolinšek pushes this idea into space exploration: as Earth becomes uninhabitable, the artist studies the feasibility of a capsule containing elements of human and more-than-human life, designed for extra-atmospheric existence.
At the heart of these benevolent relationships lies a spiritual dimension through which artists engage in a profound dialogue with the living—both visible and invisible. Sanjeeyann Paleatchy’s photographs present queer guardians from Réunion Island who inhabit, protect, and defend sacred ecosystems. Odonchimeg Davaadorj’s delicate paper, thread, paint, and earth drawings poetically illustrate the interdependence that governs all living beings. Between dreams, the digital space, and terrestrial ecosystems, Shivay La Multiple (a meta-being artist) connects us between the earth and the sky through the magical medium of a gourd.
The artworks create situations of entanglement, porous encounters (between artworks as well as between visitors), symbiotic alliances, and real and speculative kinships. From bacteria to the earth’s crust, including seeds, pheromones, waters, cells, sounds, hormones, and light sources, all living beings are considered as part of an empathic, desiring, more-than-human community, approached from an ecofeminist, intersectional perspective: queer, feminist, ecological, and decolonial. A collective and joyful way of thinking that pushes the boundaries that constrain our imaginations. In this way, the relationship between new technologies and sciences becomes fertile ground for infinite, multiple worlds. The constant intertwining of the organic and the technological joyfully generates surprising openings within the human reality, bringing forth new realities in which we are allowed to experience the invisible and infinite dimensions of what Glissant calls totality, the immense community of living beings with which we must learn to reconnect.
