Restoration: Now or Never
May 31st - June 6th 2021 | SaveArtSpace, London
Restoration: Now or Never was a public art exhibition organized by Anne Verhallen and Daria Borisova, in collaboration with SaveArtSpace. The exhibition, spanning across London billboards and bus shelters, was in conjunction with World Environment Day in the UK, a day committed to encouraging awareness and action to protect our environment. Bringing emerging and established artists together, this was the first UK activation by the non-profit SaveArtSpace.
This past year, art has proven to be of incredible value because it can both visualize the feelings of current circumstances or suggest a brighter, more progressive future. It is time to unite and restore our international communities after a time of such polarization. The exhibition will present art that pays ode to mother earth, suggests a path forward or expresses concerns about our global climate crisis. Our mission is to bring art to the public, with no museum entrance fees or intimidating white wall gallery spaces. Restore our communities and restore our connection to
the earth.
Selected Artists: Cara Romero, Coco Capitán, Formafantasma, Fred Tomaselli, Hayden Kays, Johan Deckmann, Khari Turner, Tianjiao Zhang, Edward Tsui, Lanmuzhi Yang, Lily Kwong, Misha Waks, Odinakachi Okoroafor, Olive Allen, Philomène Amougou, Piotr Krzymowski, Rewind Collective, Sophie Hughes, Stefan Brüggemann, Susan Unterberg, Tabita Rezaire, Wang Yuyang, Whitney Stolich, and Zhang Huan.
Curators: Anne Verhallen, Daria Borisova, Michael Xufu Huang, Aindrea Emelife, and Destinee Ross-Sutton.
During the week of May 31, 2021, SaveArtSpace launched public art installations for each selected work on billboard or bus shelter ad spaces in London, UK.
This public art exhibition was supported in part by Hauser & Wirth.
Tabita Rezaire is infinity incarnated into an agent of healing, who uses art as a mean to unfold the soul.
Her cross-dimensional practices envision network sciences - organic, electronic and spiritual - as healing technologies to serve the shift towards heart consciousness.
Navigating digital, corporeal and ancestral memory as sites of struggles, she digs into scientific imaginaries to tackle the pervasive matrix of coloniality and the protocols of energetic misalignments that affect the songs of our body-mind-spirits. Inspired by quantum and cosmic mechanics, Tabita’s work is rooted in time-spaces where technology and spirituality intersect as fertile ground to nourish visions of connection and emancipation.
Through screen interfaces and collective offerings, her digital healing and energy streams remind us to access our own inner data center, to bypass western authority and download directly from source.
Tabita is based in Cayenne, French Guyana. She has a Bachelor in Economics (Fr) and a Master of Research in Artist Moving Image from Central Saint Martins (Uk). Tabita is a founding member of the artist group NTU, half of the duo Malaxa, and the mother of the energy house SENEB.
Connect with Tabita on her website tabitarezaire.com/info.
Formafantasma is a research-based design studio investigating the ecological, historical, political and social forces shaping the discipline of design today. Whether designing for a client or developing self – initiated projects, the studio applies the same rigorous attention to context, processes and details. Formafantasma’s analytical nature translates in meticulous visual outcomes, products and strategies.
Our intervention is focusing on governance and the rights of non-humans living creatures. More specifically trees.
The billboard is a speculative document for the possible recognition of the rights of trees. The document has been drafted by Dr. Philipp Pattberg, professor of Transnational Governance and Policy in Amsterdam. The attempt here isn’t necessarily to suggest this is the (only) way to go (using legislation to impose environmental justice) but to introduce into the urban fabric of the city a provocative gesture that hopefully will initiate a public debate. As you can see the billboard is conceived as the first page of a hypothetical document already existing.
Connect with Formafantasma on Instagram at @formafantasma.
