Whether World (detail), Susan Bruce, 2022. (Image still). Image courtesy of the artist
Susan Bruce
Gallery 2
Friday 14 April โ Sunday 7 May
Opening Thursday 13 April 2023, 6pm - 8pm
Susan Bruceโs moving image work considers whether the natural world (including trees, fungi, and aquatic life) communicates with humans and how humans communicate with the natural world. โWhether Worldโ questions how weather is experienced by our bodies and how humans are changing everything through human activity.
There are two choices we can make as humans living in a fragile environment. This work shows two worlds, one of which is bleak and dark and in which we have to wear protective clothing because the air is toxic. In this world, when we look up, the sky is always dark, the light is always artificial, and flowers, petals and bees are only in our imagination.
In the other world, we can see humans crawling on the brown earth, and butterflies communicating with humans. Seeds are growing above the ground as well as underground, and trees are more valuable than diamonds. In this world we float amongst the clouds, smell flowers, and swim underwater like squid. We are free and not โearth boundโ. We are no longer heavy footed and donโt need to be always standing upright. We listen to the weather, people communicate with flowers and bees, which communicate back. We see pigs in all their size and pinkness walking around us. In this world, humans, plants, and non-human animals co-exist, rather than living a hierarchically ordered existence. In this world, humans are no longer at the top of the chain.
