Parallel Platform: Syntropic Surfaces
Published by Parallel Platform
English
Softcover
Cardboard case containing three small booklets and five prints
225x190mm
2018
ISBN 9789899538771
PARALLEL platform brings together 18 creative European organisations committed to promoting cross-cultural exchanges and mentorships, in order to set new standards in contemporary photography. Members include museums, galleries, festivals, art schools and publishers, from 16 countries, that will participate in selecting and hosting new artists and curators, organising exhibitions and promoting artistic networking. The large and diverse nature of the network ensures a wide geographical spread and a fertile ground for fostering new dialogues, sparking ideas and helping to boost creativity. PARALLEL is designed and led by Procur.arte and co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
“If we consider entropy as a system’s tendency toward disorder and disorganization, syntropy, in contrast, is the tendency of organisms to stabilize by structuring and connecting increasingly complex systems, which can be observed in nature and social relations. This concept was used by the Swiss agro-ecologist Ernst Götsch in his “agro-forest farm” theories. In this sense, the Martiniquan philosopher Édouard Glissant points out that the future for our societies in the postcolonial communities—structured in rhizomes or archipelagos—is exemplified by the “Creole gardens” present in the Caribbean islands, where different African and Indigenous communities coexist, connecting their knowledge and cultures. From this perspective, this exhibition brings together three diverse artists from the Parallel platform, aiming to map another possible construction of the world, accepting all the materials that are brought by the waters that enter into our cave, instead of just reading the images cast on the walls by the shadow projections (in a reference to Plato’s cave). With this focus and through different points of view and methods, their artworks deal with the foundations of Western culture, always evidencing the complexity resulting from the encounter between the human and natural elements in the photographic image.” – Teo Pitella, curator. The three artists featured in this exhibition were Ramona Güntert, Šarunas Kvietkus, and Joshua Phillips.
