Femke Herregraven, Corrupted Air – Act VI, Installation view of Taipei Biennial 2020.
Courtesy of the artist and Taipei Fine Arts Museum

SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS

Femke Herregraven: Corrupted Air

Femke Herregraven (b. 1982 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands; based in Amsterdam) investigates contemporary financial technologies and infrastructures through abstract data, examining their meaning and ecological impact, and creating unique images using an array of mediums and interdisciplinary approaches. Marking her first exhibition in Japan, this exhibition is a rare chance to see Herregraven’s work, especially the internationally acclaimed Corrupted Air – Act VI (2019). In this theatrical installation, which draws on research into catastrophe bonds (a type of investment that yields a return in the event of a natural disaster), three animals that attest to past ecological catastrophes and went extinct are resurrected as digital models to debate the sixth mass extinction that humans are bringing about. Though created before Covid, the title lends the work further nuance for us, having experienced a pandemic in which we lived our lives in fear of an invisible virus in the air, and remain caught in its grip. Along with concept materials for Herregraven’s current project, the exhibition also features A Prelude to: When The Dust Unsettles (2022–23), made as part of the artist-run project On-Trade-Off, which explores wide-ranging issues related to technological and industrial raw materials, financial speculation, and energy from the starting point of the soaring costs of lithium, which is used to make the batteries that power our electronic devices.

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Venue
Kyoto City University of Arts Art Gallery @KCUA
Rooms
@KCUA 1, 2
Dates
2023.1.28 Sat.2023.3.21 Tue.
Curated by
Kyoto City University of Arts Art Gallery @KCUA
Organized by
Kyoto City University of Arts
With additional funding from
Japan Art Council and The Kao Foundation for Arts and Science
With support from
Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Contact

Kyoto City University of Arts Art Gallery
Phone: +81-(0)75-585-2010
Please send your inquiry from the form.

Artist Profiles

Femke Herregraven
Femke Herregraven investigates which material base, geographies, and value systems are carved out by financial technologies and infrastructures. Her work focuses on the effects of abstract value systems on historiography and individual lives. This research is the basis for the conception of new characters, stories, objects, sculptures, sound, and mixed-media installations. Her current work focuses on the financialization of the future as a ‘catastrophe’ and uses language, the voice, and the respiratory system to examine these monetized speculative catastrophes within our social, biological, and technological ecosystems. She is an alumnus of the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam (2017–2018). In 2016, she collaborated with Dutch investigative journalists on the Panama Papers. In 2019, she was nominated for the Prix de Rome. She is part of On-Trade-Off: a transnational artist-led project on the new energy mythology around lithium. She is a Creator Doctus (practice-based PhD) candidate at Sandberg Instituut (2020–2024).

Installation Views

  • photos by Takeru Koroda

Videos