EXPEDITION: EMPATHY

The Decorators
Curators

Many of the foreign descriptions of Azores were written in the context of expeditions, by rationalist minds in tune with the spirit of Enlightenment, in the 19th century. They classify and categorize plants, animals, landscapes and peoples of the islands. But not all dimensions can be measured by rational systems. The magnetic properties of rocks, the tremors of the earth, the impending ascent of the roaring lava, are events that defy logical scales, occurrences that can hardly be predicted or properly measured. They escape rational systems of thought. Our expedition, unlike those of the 19th century is one interested in such immeasurable, irrational, unintelligible phenomena. Taking an approach grounded on empathy, it wants to merge instead of measure, to personify rather than classify, to live and not to explain. It embodies the island and produces experience on the ground, in collaboration with the peoples and the landscapes. A series of works produced by artists and architects populate the island and invites visitors to explore unknown dimensions of geology, digestion, time and distance. The rational thought that came to dominate the world since the Enlightenment is today recognised as deeply connected with global processes of industrialisation, and consequently, global warming. Inspired by Michel Serres’ positioning of natural beings as entities with legal rights, in a time when the sublime is no longer possible because we cannot watch nature from a distant position of safety (Bruno Latour), we take this opportunity to make an expedition that reflects our fragile, mysterious relationship with nature.