THE ELEMENTAL
a contemporary center for the arts
The Gaia Hypothesis
CHAPTER TWO 2.0:
Palm Trees Also Die
March 2 - May 25, 2024
This exhibition is dedicated to the Cahuilla Nation, protectors and stewards of the Oases in the Western Deserts.
Palm Trees Also Die is the second chapter in THE ELEMENTAL's inaugural cycle of exhibitions. The aim of this cycle is to develop the visual, sensitive and performative writing of a collective, imaginary novel dedicated to the Gaia Hypothesis. According to the hypothesis formulated by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis at the dawn of the 70s, Gaia is the name given to the Earth defined as a living, self-regulating super-organism that maintains a positive balance for life. With the Gaia Hypothesis, we are invited to reconsider the ways we inherited from Modernity of understanding and thinking about the environment. What's more, we are called upon to think differently about living things, to understand the subtle interdependencies that link all their components. The Earth is not the backdrop to our actions, but an actor in human history in its own right, never separate from us, whatever the Moderns may think. Gaia, as a living organism, reacts to our actions in a set of "feedback loops", as climate change and environmental disasters perfectly illustrate. We are linked to the Earth and we must understand her fragility, which is in reality, not hers but ours.
After our first chapter dedicated to the four fundamental elements, the Palm Tree is the subject of the second chapter. This exhibition has a strong symbolic dimension, given the location. Indeed, the Coachella Valley is the birthplace of the only palm tree endemic to the California deserts: the Washingtonia Filifera, or Máwul in the Cahuilla language.
The Gaia Hypothesis
CHAPTER ONE 2.0:
Earth, Fire, Water, Air
October 15, 2022 - January 21, 2023
October 15, 2022, THE ELEMENTAL opened an expanded 2.0 presentation of The Gaia Hypothesis - Chapter One: Earth / Fire / Water / Air - the inaugural exhibition that launched in February with works by Cristopher Cichocki, Laura Grisi, Helen Mayer Harrison & Newton Harrison, David Horvitz, Caroline Le Méhauté, Angelika Markul, Ana Mendieta, and Radenko Milak.
The newly amplified 2.0 version of the exhibition brings forth additional artworks by Francis Alÿs, Alice Aycock, Aaron Giesel, Marie-Luce Nadal, and Benoît Pype. This iteration will conclude the first chapter in a cycle involving the collective, visual, and performative writing of a curated visual novel that deals with Gaia’s intrusion.
About The Gaia Hypothesis
Formulated in 1971 by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, the Gaia hypothesis postulates that the Earth is a living, self-regulating super-organism reliant on a subtle relational balance between all its components. This premise is an initiation to inhabiting the world with the awareness and sensitivity where being a part of a living whole can never be reduced to the sum of its parts - as this whole can only be experienced through the interconnection of relationships.
This first chapter examines the Gaia hypothesis by testing it against the four fundamental elements: Earth, Fire, Water, Air - culminating into an interdisciplinary presentation that will include an international array of 14 artists featuring seminal works of 1970s Earth Art in combination with a new generation of artists that address the complexity of elements and natural forces that sustain our living, continually shifting environment in the face of climate change.
