Florestania by Marjetica Potrc

Preview: Tuesday 6th November 2007, 6pm - 8pm
Exhibition continues until Sunday, 9th December 2007

Florestania, an exhibition of large scale wall drawings, video, and framed drawings by Ljubljana-based artist Marjetica Potrc, opens on November 6th in Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin 2. Florestania continues to Sunday 9th December. The exhibition will be accompanied by a roundtable discussion, “Rural Evolution”, with Marjetica Potrc, Andreas Lang (Architect/Public Works, UK), Wapka Feenstra (Artist/NL), Dominic Stevens (Architect/IRL), and Sheila Gallagher (The Green Sod Land Trust/IRL) at 2pm on Wednesday, 7th November. The Roundtable will be chaired by Nathalie Weadick, (Director, The Irish Architecture Foundation). “Rural Evolution” is organised in partnership with The Irish Architecture Foundation.

Florestania explores themes and subjects related to grass roots political, economic and social crises within globalised economies and corporate politics. Potr c moves beyond utopian and post-utopian rhetoric, and looks at the very practical considerations facing localized societal development. Potrc's observations become empirical building blocks for a worldwide approach.

The exhibition outlines Potrc's bottom-up solutions that ameliorate the relations between individuals and society. Central to the presentation are wall drawings that originate from Potrc's recent travels in the area of Acre in Brazil . During this period, Potrc observed how communities in the region interact with their environment and how their specific responses can be used as examples to the broader discussion regarding political and social governance within a globalised context. The wall drawings depict projects and strategies developed by the forest communities.

These are accompanied by a video work of Potrc in conversation with curator José Roca about specific local needs and plans for the area of Acre . These plans for a sustainable environment include: a University of the Forest ; a new kind of rural citizenship they call ‘Florestania '; small-scale economies, communal ownership and protection of local land and knowledge.

The framed drawings, entitled: 'The Great City of Medellín', 'Modernism Takes Root' and 'Rural Practices, Future Strategies' expand the core narratives and parables into local contexts and disparate economies. They present alternative histories and propose a continuous process of learning and sharing of knowledge.

Eschewing the clichés of empowerment, Potrc authorises the viewer to take control of their own destiny with evidence of the construction of new and better possible realities that show that the supremacy of the future is in the present.

The Artist

Marjetica Potrc ( Ljubljana , 1953) is an artist and architect based in Ljubljana , Slovenia . Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the Americas , including the Sao Paolo Biennial (1996 and 2006) and the Venice Biennial (2003). She has had solo exhibitions at the Barbican, London (2006), the Guggenheim Museum New York (2001); Blow de la Barra, London (2006), Max Protetch Gallery, New York (2002 and 2005); Nordenhake Gallery Berlin (2003 and 2007); PBICA, Palm Beach, Florida, (2003); List Visual Arts Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2004); and De Appel Foundation for Contemporary Art Amsterdam (2004), among other places. Her many on-site installations include Dry Toilet, Caracas (2003); Balcony with Wind Turbine, Liverpool Biennial (2004); Genesis (2005), at the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo ; and Desalination Plant, Sharjah Biennial (2007). She has also published a number of essays on contemporary urban architecture. In 2005, she was a visiting professor at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, most recently she had a IASPIS artist residency in Stockholm , Sweden (2006). She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, most notably the Guggenheim Hugo Boss Prize (2000).

Acre is a state in the far west of Brazil , which borders Bolivia and Peru . 93% of the state is covered by tropical rainforest where there is a huge diversity of plant and animal species. However, the rainforest is endangered by cattle ranchers and others who are cutting down the trees to clear the land for commercial purposes. The Croa territory, where Potrc travelled, is inhabited by 400 families, and is a mainly rural community.

Many communities in Acre manage their own areas of the rainforest, because the Brazilian government decided that the people who live there are best equipped to take care of it. In order for the communities to survive, the forest must survive too.

The communities are mainly self-sufficient: their economy is based on resources from the rainforest. They hunt, fish and grow their own crops. Although geographically isolated, they use solar power, mainly installed in schools, to run computers, TVs, radios and satellite dishes and keep in touch with the rest of the world.

Education is very important. The communities are building many primary schools in isolated areas so that children can be educated without having to travel long distances from their homes.

These schools are built by the villagers and many are equipped with modern technology by the government.

The communities in Acre are developing in a different way to other areas of the world. For example, in China cities are growing at an incredible rate and more and more people live in urban areas. In Acre the communities are small and rural, but use modern technology and see themselves as contributors to the global community.

José Roca is a curator and critic based in Bogota , Colombia , where he has been in charge of Temporary Exhibitions at the Luis Angel Arango Library since 1994.

Roca has written extensively on Colombian artists for local and international publications. A former Whitney ISP alumni (Critical Studies), he was the 2002-2003 Whitney-Lauder Curatorial Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Art , University of Pennsylvania . In 2002 he won the American Center Foundation grant for emerging curators. Among his recent curatorial projects are: Botánica Política, Sala Montcada/La Caixa, Barcelona (2004); Psicogeometries, ARCO, Madrid (2004); Traces of Friday: art, tourism, displacement, ICA, Philadelphia (2003); TransHistorias: historia y mito en la obra de José Alejandro Restrepo, Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogotá (2001); Carlos Garaicoa: La Ruina; La Utopía, Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogotá (2000), Bronx Museum, New York (2000), and Museo Alejandro Otero, Caracas (2001); Define "Context", APEX art C.P., New York (2000).  Roca makes part of the curatorial team of the Trienal Poli/gráfica de San Juan , to be held in Puerto Rico in December, 2004, and curated the Colombian selection for the 2004 Bienal de Cuenca , Ecuador . He edits Columna de arena, an online column on art and contemporary culture.

The Acre state government calls itself the “government of the forest” for a state whose economy and culture are defined and sustained by the forest. Its symbol is a tree, casually drawn by a city official during a meeting and adopted by acclamation. It is a new concept, and state officials invented a new word to describe it: florestania. They explain that the word “citizenship,” or cidadania, has its roots in the city. But Acre 's roots, they believe, are in the forest, the floresta, and so the ideal the state's people aspire to is florestania. Whether Acreanos live in the city, in rural settlements, ranches, or far from the nearest road, their dominant economic and cultural reality is the forest. The state government adopted a tree as its symbol.

Press Contact: Noel Kelly - Temple Bar Gallery & Studios
t. + 353 1 671 0073 e. nkelly@templebargallery.com