WhitePaper by; 'Francesca ThyssenBornemisza' - 31/09/2022
"Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza is today one of the leading figures in the art world, both as a patron of the arts and as a collector. This year she has been awarded with the Collecting Award in the category ‘Philanthropy and International Collection’ granted by the ARCO Foundation, and in 2021 she received the Honorary Order of Distinction from Jamaica for her efforts in marine ecosystem restoration of Portland".
'The breakdown of the binary,' Singh Soin explains, 'is the beginning of infinity.'[...] operating at the spatial vastness of three poles, Singh Soin pulls the story inward, positioning her body as narrator and guide. The viewer is therefore given more than an ominous narrative of environmental degradation or a neatly packaged story of salvation: in the overlaps and glitches of different ontologies—scientific, mystic, alien, embodied—she pries open the potential for a different set of always shifting, always reorienting relations.'
"The Soul Expanding Ocean brings together two artists with different but complementary ways of engaging with oceanic histories and ecologies. In-depth research creates a complex set of fluid interconnections across the two spaces, opening up powerful investigations into the impacts of colonialism and non-human animacies and agencies."
Metrópolis; TBA21 on st_age - La2 RTVE - 11/05/2022
Metrópolis closes its follow-up of st_age, TBA21's digital platform established in 2020 to maintain the Foundation's commitment to the production and dissemination of artistic projects in times of pandemic, with a review of its evolution and a projection of its future role.
"Beginning with presence, being there, and learning more about the flora and fauna of the place, the next step is to reach for healing practices—the artist speaks of a connection between healing the land and healing ourselves. One vital element is to break differentiating dualisms such as nature and culture, science and belief, and another to stop the violent impulse to name, possess, and colonize life and nature."
"During a swim in the Solomon Islands, the artist found herself caught between the waves of the Pacific Ocean and a formidable curtain of tropical rainwater. In the aftermath of the mesmerizing encounter, Bopape dreamt of the song that forms a part of the installation in Venice."
“Ultimately that’s what we’re trying to do today with TBA21, [...] breaking down the boundaries that we live in, bringing new forms of seeing and inspiring people to think differently.”
"I believe that for the radical measures necessary to slow down the climate crisis, we need cultural responses that would inspire communities of care and concern just as much as we need political buy-in for meaningful impact and change.”
“Sometimes research that is geared at peer review and ends up in an academic paper has a very limited impact on a wider audience or reality, [...] This is the first time we are doing anything on this scale. The flashy, splashy, huge monumental thing is an exception, an opportunity to communicate something iconic.”
"Taloi Havini’s expansive artworks draws on archival, scientific and cultural research, underpinned by a deeply-held commitment to First Nations knowledge systems, particularly those from her home in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville. […] The artists practice can be described as a constellation of compelling narratives that portray and bear witness to the strength, political resilience and assertions of cultural continuum.”
“Havini’s exhibition is quite radical (also from an aesthetic point of view) in that it challenges dominant Western tropes—or “speaks back,” to use a postcolonialist term—affirming a deep cyclical understanding of the ocean, space, and time present in indigenous culture.”
Artforum; Taloi Havini Review — Veronica Santi — 02/06/2021
"‘The melodic portions are complemented by silence and repetitive hypnotic mantric moments. The cumulative effect is one of infinite facets of colors, odors, moods, landscapes, and beats in a cyclical sequence that traverses seasons and continents, dawns and dusks, the atmosphere of the earth and its center, submerged and emerged land, instinct and information. […] The call is one no one can escape answering, because the sea has no boundaries. “We don’t live on these small islands; we live on the ocean,” the artist asserts. The sea is a single entity, not only a physical but a cultural connector.’"
"The work is amplified by the acoustics of Chiesa di San Lorenzo, facilitating the deep listening exercise intended by the work. As the sound intensifies, along with its meditative quality, Answer to the Call invites its audience to contemplate the dialogue between science and art, the traditional and the contemporary"
"Beyond it lies Havini’s deeply contrasting world of sound, soft and immersive, where a 42-minute cycle of voices, drumming, chanting, flutes, birdsong and underwater ocean recordings swirls through the space from a circle of 22 speakers. This is mapping of very different kind. There is no imagery, but deep blue carpets, softly billowing ultramarine drapes and a raised platform in the shape of Buka Island."
'A quote comes to mind by the British anthropologist Tim Ingold: “We have to think of art as part of the ecological process of ongoing world renewal––which doesn’t have to be restricted to artists.” To say it differently: change is possible, art can help, and the Ocean is our greatest ally.' — Markus Reymann
ENCORE! — France24 — Olivia Salazar-Winspear — 02/04/21
"Taloi Havini's artwork reaches out to audiences and grabs them with their compelling nature."
"‘Sense to Act: The Aquatic Observatory’ amounts to a tool kit of information and approaches to bear in mind in deciding how we should deal with the further development of the oceans, which technology will surely make increasingly feasible."
"What if art institutions became liquid? What if they were conduits to a perpetual flow of matter? Places that could not easily hold their shape?...Initially a funding body to support artists and architects while amassing a private collection, in 2011, the foundation has launched TBA21—Academy together with Markus Reymann, a globally dispersed ocean conservancy that deploys artistic discourse as a means to create new knowledge about the water world."
"The church embodies Venice's Unesco World Heritage status as 'a unique artistic achievement', but it also captures the pressing existential threat confronting the city."
"The exhibition attempts to visualize the ramified connections that have led to the massive changes in the oceans and the territories bordering them. These include rising sea levels, the transformation of coasts, urbanization, algae growth and overfishing, to name just a few of the effects associated with climate change. This is important because oceans are important to the state of our planet. Despite their size, the world's oceans also form a kind of blind spot: the enormous expanse of water is a great unknown to us."
"The inaugural exhibition by American artist Joan Jonas took place in 2019 and looked at the fundamental role the ocean has played in cultures all over the world. Her exquisite paintings of fish appeared to swim through the space."
"It’s an exhibition that lives up to the Academy’s ambitions to foster 'interdisciplinary research, catalyse engagement, stimulate new knowledge and inspire artistic production.'"
'The digital works, shown on monitors about six feet tall, look like colorful abstract paintings marked with dots and vectors and constantly changing colors that reflect the shifting ocean conditions.'
Art in America; 'Climate Changes Everything' — William S. Smith — 05/20 (Cover)
"If the setting evoked and imminent flood, Jonas' work seemed to celebrate the birth of a new mode of existance rather than lament and old one...Jonas avoids narrowing the role of art to making a point about the climate. Her evocations of myth and ritual instead bespeak a much larger range of experience upon which climate touches."
"Jonas shows us the sinuous ties that bind. In 'Moving Off The Land II', science and mythology lead us continually back to the ocean."
"This new embassy for the oceans catalyzes transdisciplinary research and fosters collective action, encouraging audiences to radically reimagine how we see and treat the defining feature of our blue planet."
"True to her task-oriented, ritualistic, deadpan self, Jonas created utterly transcendent, even magical, passages with the most rudimentary means possible—a spotlight and blank white papers."
InTime — June, 2020
Art in America — William S. Smith — May, 2020
Flash Art — Angela Rui — June, 2020
Metropolis M — Agnieszka Gratza — March, 2020
TL Magazine — Angela Rui — June, 2020
