Eva Diaz, Aperture Magazine. Ever since its invention, photography has depended on the global extraction and exploitation of so-called natural resources. In the early 19th century, these were salt, fossil fuels such as bitumen and carbon, as well as copper and silver, which were all used for the first images on copper plates and for salt paper prints.
Today, with the advent of digital photography and the ubiquity of mobile devices, image production is contingent on rare earths and metals such as coltan, cobalt, and europium. Image storage and distribution also consume immense amounts of energy. One scholar recently observed that Americans produce more photographs every two minutes than were made in the entire nineteenth century.
Using historical photographs and contemporary artistic positions as well as interviews with restorers, geologists, and climate researchers, the exhibition tells the story of photography as one of industrial production, showing the extent to which the medium has been deeply intertwined with the human change of the environment.
By focusing on the ways by which industrial image production has been materially and ideologically implicated in climate change, rather merely using it to depict its consequences, the exhibition employs a radically new perspective towards this subject. The exhibition is curated by artist, author and curator Boaz Levin and Dr. Media partner: ARTE. The project offers artists physical space for their work in the Gropius Bau building, thereby re-establishing the institution as a place of artistic production, and blurring the boundaries between studio and exhibition space.
With the rooms being utilised for both creative work and different presentation formats, BPA at Gropius Studios asks what it means for artists to reveal parts of their artistic process and to invite an audience into their studio. In addition to returning to the historical roots of the building, the collaboration also aims to open the exhibition hall to partners in the city and to provide a platform for Berlin artists together with BPA.
