Hybris. A Possible Approach to Ecoaesthetics

Hybris, wishes to encourage a rethinking on the potential of art as a tool for action as well as for subjectification in relation to the environmental concerns of today.

The show creates a landscape that speaks to political, economic and social ecology based on the gazes of around forty international, national and local artists, all of them contributing, in one way or another, to a rethinking on how to maintain the balance of the ecosystem, whether by working with nature through gestures that have more to do with the symbolic or else by searching for some kind of more tangible impact. In their works, both the content as well as the form speak of ecology from an eco-aesthetic approach that goes beyond a simple critique of the well-known consequences caused by climate change. The exhibition adopts a respectful attitude to the environment, in a response to the hubris characterising the present, with the goal of seeking alternatives that will help to bring about a paradigm shift and to collaborate towards a more habitable future for everybody.

The primary focus of Hybris is to adopt a different approach to art’s relationship with ecology and sustainability, two highly questionable concepts due to the increasingly more prevalent greenwashing techniques used by many corporations and businesses. Having said that, the exhibition engages with the approaches of Felix Guattari, for whom ecology questions the overall subjectivity and formations of capitalist power. In the foundation of his ecosophical theory, the French philosopher introduced the inextricable interconnection and articulation of three areas: the environment, the social, and human subjectivity.

To this end, and with the purpose of undertaking a project coherent with this approach, the methodology for the curatorial selection was deliberately conditioned by the ways of working, with the goal of reinforcing the solidness of the project and to open a door to a search for other more ethical ways of consuming. A number of guidelines were decided on, such as criteria of closeness in the selection and ecological footprint in the transport of the works, the use of environmental materials and processes, recycling of exhibition materials and mechanisms, a refusal to build walls, etc.

Hybris wishes to rethink possible alternatives to tackle the destruction of the environment, and proposes an approach to art as a way of adopting a position towards a reality, as a means of protest and awareness-raising that opens a path towards a possible ecological aesthetic. Art must contribute to the public debate on politics of sustainability, developing creative proposals that—both in form and content—put forward alternative forms of working with the environment fairly and sustainably, ranging from the symbolic to the practical.