The Gaia Hypothesis

Chapter Two 2.0: Palm Trees Also Die

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Currently On View

March 2 - May 25, 2024

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This exhibition is dedicated to the Cahuilla Nation, protectors and stewards of the Oases in the Western Deserts.

 

Palm Trees Also Die is the second chapter in THE ELEMENTAL's inaugural cycle of exhibitions. The aim of this cycle is to develop the visual, sensitive and performative writing of a collective, imaginary novel dedicated to the Gaia Hypothesis. According to the hypothesis formulated by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis at the dawn of the 70s, Gaia is the name given to the Earth defined as a living, self-regulating super-organism that maintains a positive balance for life. With the Gaia Hypothesis, we are invited to reconsider the ways we inherited from Modernity of understanding and thinking about the environment. What's more, we are called upon to think differently about living things, to understand the subtle interdependencies that link all their components. The Earth is not the backdrop to our actions, but an actor in human history in its own right, never separate from us, whatever the Moderns may think. Gaia, as a living organism, reacts to our actions in a set of "feedback loops", as climate change and environmental disasters perfectly illustrate.  We are linked to the Earth and we must understand her fragility, which is in reality, not hers but ours.

 

After our first chapter dedicated to the four fundamental elements, the Palm Tree is the subject of the second chapter. This exhibition has a strong symbolic dimension, given the location. Indeed, the Coachella Valley is the birthplace of the only palm tree endemic to the California deserts: the Washingtonia Filifera, or Máwul in the Cahuilla language.

 

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Curator - Christopher Yggdre