Cassandra Complex

If the climate crisis is humanity’s deadly disease, alienation is one of its many symptoms. The exhibition "Cassandra Complex" shows how the feeling of human alienation is deeply interconnected with the climate crisis that we are experiencing. This theme overarches the exhibition through interdisciplinary artworks presented by six international artists. The artists depict different ways of highlighting or dealing with feelings of estrangement and anxiety. Their valuable contributions support Cassandra Complex’s thesis that alienation is a universal human vulnerability that has the potential to become a rich terrain for transformative narratives. Throughout history, the concept of alienation became particularly well-known through Marxist theory. In Marxism, alienation is described as a feeling of estrangement derived from the division of class and labor. This feeling reinforces the increasingly mechanistic role that individuals have had in society since the rise of Industrialism. Later on, Theodor W. Adorno, one of the foundational thinkers of the Frankfurt School, proposed that the cause of alienation—although an intrinsic characteristic of human nature—was propelled by the Enlightenment period. As we know now, Enlightenment and colonization have been two deeply interconnected processes that followed a logic of complete domination of nature by humans. The violent and murderous process of colonization—which still unfolds today— forced out peoples, rituals, Indigenous technologies, and mythology, in favor of western technology, rationality, and Christianity. Underestimating what it did not understand, the entire structure of Western power and wealth has been built upon this. If we fast-forward to the present, with the development of the comforts brought by global capitalism and that of technology, humanity’s alienation from nature deepened so greatly that it has become a self-destructive force. Through a bird’s eye view, "Cassandra Complex" offers a subversive allegory for this collective alienation. Throughout the exhibition, the artworks depict through different strategies and mediums, how alienation is embodied and, in some cases, how it came to be. Thus, the works of the six artists could be seen as arguments in a larger thesis. José Montealegre and Claudia Martínez Garay highlight through their interdisciplinary practices a type of alienation resulting from the greed for economic dominance and ex- ploitation by European Colonial expansion in the Americas and, respectively, the enormous and ongoing influence that Indigenous knowledge has had on Europe. Nona Inescu and Hanna-Maria Hammari depict an alienation from nature by tapping into a post-anthropocentric uncanny, where organic and inorganic forms intertwine, offering potential solutions to break the patterns of dualistic thinking. Investigating the existential fear of death, Özgür Kar taps into a deep-rooted alienation that rises from humanity’s inability to accept death and decay as part of life, a condition heightened by the development of technology. Through his sculptural installation, Dennis Siering, depicts an alienation resulting from the toxicity of extractive industries and the insatiable desire to dominate and control resources. Together, the works in the exhibition highlight the idea that social and environmental struggles are deeply interrelated throughout the complexity of history. "Cassandra Complex" finds common ground in this alienation to consider where our inability to act derives from, and to propose that critical thinking, radical empathy, communal reflection and action, present new ways of facing and dealing with the climate crisis. The exhibition is curated by Adriana Blidaru, guest curator of the AIR_Frankfurt curator-in-residence programme of 2022.