GROUP EXHIBITION

You Cannot Elaborate the Dark Thickness of Night As They Can focuses on the lives of the non-human plants and animals that share the Earth with human beings. As it shows the entangled nature of the human/non-human relationship, it proposes consideration of the ‘whole’ rights of the beings who make up the planet. The exhibition title is taken from a line in the collection Dog Songs by the American poet Mary Oliver. It is a message that praises the dog’s innate ability to distinguish various presences even in the darkness through their sight, smell, and sounds, and it also shows the divide that arises from interspecies differences between human and non-human beings. If human beings are faced with the inherent limitation of being unable to escape our humanity, the perspectives shown by the four artists as they observe the non-human presences around us and visualise our relationships with them offer a way of transcending that divide and living together.

The eight works in the exhibition show non-human beings who have established multiple layers through their presence on Earth over the ages. The most familiar and common presences shown in the works—namely dogs and weeds—are differentiated into various forms through the perspectives of the artists capturing them. They may appear blithely throughout the main provinces of human life, taking on the appearance of symbiotic partners or outlaws that threaten other species. At the same time, they exist within the cycles of nature as all life does: appearing into the world before eventually fading away. What the works in this exhibition illustrate is not merely the object that appears on the canvas, but the ways in which each individual lives its life and the forms of relationships established between human and non-human beings—and between each being and its environment—as they share the same temporal and spatial milieu. As we observe how the softness and moistness of plants and animals turns rough and dry over time, just as ours does, the portraits of weeds and dogs in the images become juxtaposed with ourselves as resonant forms of life. While the exhibition starts from the divide between human and non-human beings, it attempts to proceed from there to our commonalities as presences making up a diverse world.

The work of artist Gosari incorporates the relationships that human beings have formed with plants through the process of cultivating a village community and eco-friendly garden. She focuses on weeds as plants that are defined as ‘unsuitable’ within human-centered ecosystems, as people eradicate them for the sake of their harvests. Her ‘Grass man’ series (2021–24) includes pure forms of sculpture, as the artist hand-shapes removed weeds into something akin to a snowman made from the snow. Through the gallery, these figures recall the presence of the plants that are eliminated as human beings pursue their livelihoods. Earth star, weed (2024) is an assemblage created by gathering the different plants that grow in the Earth, which are variously categorized by us as ‘crops’ and ‘weeds.’ While collecting the weeds, Gosari verified each one’s name and use. Breaking free from binary divisions, she presents plants with differing characteristics to show the inherent diversity of life.