The exhibition The Constant Unraveling Flurry We Depend Upon by artist Jia-Jen Lin contemplates the intricate tapestry of human existence amid escalating sociopolitical and ecological crises. Presenting the artist’s first mixed-reality installation, the exhibition transforms abstract concepts of landscape, deterioration, and memories of loss into a tangible audio-visual environment that bridges the virtual and physical realms.
Jia-Jen Lin’s expeditions in Svalbard (also known as Spitsbergen), a Norwegian territory in the High Arctic, serve as both a backdrop and a mirror to reflect the global environmental and social complexities we all face. In collaboration with American writer Hester Blum, whose article “‘The World Is Here Too’: Out of Place in Svalbard” inspires the work, the exhibition weaves an open-to-interpretation terrain within the gallery. It navigates narration, queries about cultural heritage and history, and the interplay between virtual and physical spaces. Inspired by the critical frameworks of the Capitalocene, as articulated by Jason Moore and Donna Haraway, Jia-Jen Lin also examines the responsibility of capitalist mechanisms in driving climate change.
Proposing a dialogue between visitors and collapsing landscapes, the exhibition addresses uncertainties and sorrows tied to the troubled planet while creating a space for reimagining alternative futures. The immersive audio and visual experience confronts us with the disorientation and disasters we face and prompts us to reflect on the disintegrating present and urgent ecological challenges. Through embodied memories, the interconnectedness of all living beings within fragile and collapsing landscapes becomes tangible.
In this hybrid installation viewed through an MR headset, Jia-Jen Lin employs game design and data visualization to explore interdisciplinary research at the intersection of art, literature, and science. The work integrates video, text, sound, virtual imagery, and sculpture to create an immersive environment in which viewers can simultaneously see and hear the MR videos alongside the physical sculptures in the gallery space. A female voice reads, sings, and guides participants through three distinct scenarios: a four-minute, four-channel video composed from the artist’s expeditions in Svalbard; a generative visualization based on weather data from the Southern Patagonian Icefield, provided by atmospheric scientist Tobias Sauter; and an installation made from discarded materials collected in Germany and garbage that had washed ashore in the Arctic region.
Alongside this work, the artist shows a single-channel video titled Treading on Thin Ice, which features footage of natural and artificial landscapes, an interview at a genetic laboratory, and a scene with actors, all together creating a cross-path dialogue about existence, change, adaptation, hope, human behavior, and emotions.
The exhibition is the result of collaborations with curator and writer Lena Fließbach, atmospheric scientist and professor Tobias Sauter, and Arctic historian and writer Hester Blum. Its title is inspired by Laurie Glover’s poem, “Such Is the Fate of all Universes.”
Curated by Lena Fließbach
The exhibition has been kindly funded by the National Culture and Arts Foundation of Taiwan.
