GERDA STEINER & JÖRG LENZLINGER

Les Extrémités de notre Univers
Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut 2019


Around the gallery in the Quarantine district and on the beaches of Beirut, the treasure hunt had no difficulty finding garbage which becomes precious and poetic in the context of this installation. Plants were carefully selected, mainly from the fertile Bisri Valley in South Lebanon, were a dam project will flood several hectares of land and plants.

Additionally, a collection of seeds is presented, gathered from Terbol, Lebanon through the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Arid Areas (ICARDA), whose mission is to preserve and develop agricultural capital in Africa and Asia.

The exhibition highlights a crude reality, conveying the unheard voices of ecological causes in Lebanon, which visitors encounter through the lens of the duo's ephemeral and hybrid universe. The surreal fantasy they create transports the viewer into a fabricated magical world, that cheerfully mixes organic elements and chemical fertilizer on which the installation will feed to grow and morph throughout the exhibition.