Awst & Walther. BE WATER II

BE WATER is the first comprehensive solo exhibition in Berlin by the Welsh-German artist duo Awst & Walther and was organised as a collaboration between the Georg Kolbe Museum, the Association for the Promotion of Art and Culture at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz e.V. and Dr Ursula Ströbele of the Berlin University of the Arts. For several years, Manon Awst (b. 1983) and Benjamin Walther (b. 1974) have been exploring the world reshaped by humankind, using their work to reveal the effects of the conflictual encounter between social and political structures and the primal forces of nature. In BE WATER, the artists explore humanity’s ambivalent relationship with the ocean. For centuries, the sea has served as a canvas for human longing, inspiration and fascination. As a vital resource for industry and the economy, it also represents a valuable habitat: more than half of the European population lives within 50 kilometres of the sea, which also harbours significant potential for danger. Climate change – recognised since the 1970s – and rising sea levels are leading to increasingly frequent flooding and other disasters worldwide. Awst & Walther’s artistic exploration ties in with the current discourse on our responsibility towards nature in the Anthropocene era. The focus is always on the question of each individual’s relationship with their spatial and social environment, as well as on the aim of uncovering the structures and logics behind established systems of order.

The first part of the project, the work BE WATER I, commissioned by the Association for the Promotion of Art and Culture at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz e.V., was unveiled in September 2017. Awst & Walther covered the entire surface of a false façade, approximately eighteen metres high, situated between two buildings at Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße 43, with mussel shells. The second part takes the form of the exhibition BE WATER II at the Georg Kolbe Museum. On display here are installations, sculptures and a video work created specifically for the exhibition. In collaboration with Dr Ursula Ströbele from the Berlin University of the Arts, the artists have organised the interdisciplinary symposium ‘Natur 4.0’. Representatives from the fields of art, art history, the humanities and the natural sciences are invited to discuss, as part of the exhibition, the pressing issues of limited resources, the loss of our biodiversity and the transformation of nature into a cultivated, industrialised landscape. Here, Awst & Walther continue a key aspect of their artistic practice, which stems from exchange and collaboration with scientists from various disciplines.