In this episode, we answer the question: what are the emancipatory aspects or elements of an old tree that are not related to dominant ideological forms? Let’s find those tools of emancipation of the tree from dominant views, and create visual discourse of nature’s ideology using oil colours. With concrete and powerful extensions, the tree is showing the form in which we can recognise astonishing patterns and aspects, including the home of bees.
In the educational painting and drawing sessions “On Nature and Ideology” Rena and Vladan discover and visualize aspects of the discourse on ‘nature’s ideology’ and the relations it activates.
Looking at nature, western dominant ideology sees it as a separate sphere, a space for human cultivation, exploitation, or as a beautiful landscape. The sessions aim to generate a sensorial knowledge through an artistic gesture that interrogates the dominant views on nature and our relation with it.
What is the ‘ideology of nature’? The contradictions of an anthropocentric dominant ideology and its gaze projected on the natural world become visible in our four episodes:
1. Symmetry and Abstraction – Hybrid Floral Moments;
2. Emancipation and Nature – Emancipatory Extensions of the Tree;
3. Solidarity and Infrastructure – Progressive Consciousness “En plein air” and
4. Institution and Autonomy – Gentle Mechanisms of Nature’s Ideology.
The new series is part of Performative Drawing, thoughtful and joyful, militantly optimistic drawing sessions initiated by Rena Raedle and Vladan Jeremic, artists from Belgrade.
In an artistic and pedagogical manner, they invite the viewers to practice relational capacities of thinking and visualization and to engage in a process of creation and reflection without a safety net of pre-formulated ideas. “On Nature and Ideology. How to Draw from the Perspective of Nature?” was possible thanks to the support of the Ecoversities Alliance 2020 Publication, Film and Multimedia Initiative. http://www.ecoversities.org
Rena Rädle & Vladan Jeremić are Belgrade-based artists whose research-oriented work comprises drawing, text, video, photography, installation and artistic interventions in public space. In their collaborative practice Rena & Vladan explore the relation between art and politics, unveiling the contradictions of today’s societies and developing transformative potentials of art in the context of social struggles. They use techniques that are easy to reproduce and distribute such as drawing and prints and simple materials such as textile, cardboard and wood, insisting on the use value and social and ecological awareness of their artistic production. They engage with current debates and struggles in collaboration with social movements and disseminate their art works through reproduction in various media.
For more information visit http://raedle-jeremic.net/
