Artist Anke Mellin in her project SYMBIOSES – THE DELHI CHAPTER looks at rapidly changing lifestyles and the loss of awareness that everything in life is connected and interdependent through a different prism. She has collected excrement from animals, dried these and cast them in aluminum.
She feels, on our human existence excrements do not play any role anymore. They disappear into systems we use without knowing much about it. In earlier forms of existence, excrements of animals were a highly valued fertilizer in the fields and an important element in maintaining households.
The original unconventional material of this work plays an important role in connection with the material of the casts. Aluminum is a new product of technological development. The span between the natural and the high-tech could not be greater.
The exhibition includes photographs of animal excrements. These have been removed from their natural settingsand by using Photoshop she makes them more visible as form and structure.
Through an engaging encounter with issues of human and animal’s lives, the aluminum casts & the photographs compel us to observe and reflect on the world in which we live today and our past.
This exhibition is supported by the City of Hamburg, Department of Culture and Media, Germany