Melting Present

„We live in an age of mud — an era where information, data, and knowledge swirl together like a murky, opaque slurry, making it impossible to see clearly what lies ahead.“ – James Bridle, New Dark Age, 2018 In this quote, artist and author James Bridle describes in his book New Dark Age the challenges presented by the advancing Anthropocene—the current epoch of profound human intervention in the Earth’s natural processes. These interventions are characterized by extractive processes such as resource exploitation and information accumulation, leading to ecological disasters and planetary upheavals. More knowledge, as Bridle argues, does not necessarily lead to clearer predictions, but instead produces a kind of “knowledge sludge” that muddies our view of the future and exposes the limits of what can be predicted. Finding our bearings in a world that has become unpredictable, demands new models of thought and tools for navigation. Melting Present addresses this state of increasing instability, opening up associative connections to current heatwaves, glacial retreat, and thawing permafrost. In their artistic contributions, Matheline Marmy and Eglė Budvytytė explore how we might grasp the human-driven environmental changes of our time and question our exploitative relationship to life-sustaining ecological systems. Drawing on geological history, insights from life sciences, and speculative narratives, they open up alternative ways of viewing how humans, matter, and non-human beings coexist. In her artistic research practice, Matheline Marmy explores how materials react to change—such as glass, copper, or textiles. Through experimental methods, she exposes these materials to chemical processes, heat, or time, treating them as more than something passive: they generate their own form, transform, react—and thus function as an active counterpart in the artistic process. Her sculptures and installations reveal these entangled interactions and share an affinity with the Arte Povera movement, whose artists in the 1960s and 70s created installations with everyday materials. The works developed specifically for the exhibition are part of her long-standing exploration of materials as carriers of memory, history, and transformation. Storytelling is also a central element of Eglė Budvytytė’s artistic practice. Her video works, performances, songs, and poems address the persuasive and empowering potential of collectivity, vulnerability, and permeable relationships between bodies and the environment. She draws on choreographic movement, gestures, and singing as tools to disrupt social norms in public space and to renegotiate roles and relationships. The concept of symbiosis appears in her works as a form of togetherness—a coexistence that emphasizes connection and exchange, as opposed to strategies of control and regulation. This approach is also evident in her collaborative artistic practice: partnering with artists from other fields, the public, and amateur actors plays a central role.