Portable Nation

Disappearance as work in progress – approaches to Ecological Romanticism

The art collective Chamber of Public Secrest (CPS) is appointed to curate the Maldivian Pavilion at the 55th Venice biennale in 2013. This is the first time the Maldives participates in the Biennial.

The history of the artistic aesthetics of the Maldives is not widely documented as the Island is not known for its visual arts activities but rather for the supreme beauty of its ocean, ecology and environment. CPS intends to combine the two aspects by treating the culture and nature of the Maldives as our central subject.

The Maldives Pavilion is an eco-aesthetics space, a platform for environmental campaigners, artists and thinkers.
Through inviting artists and contributors to the Maldives Pavilion our intention is to provide a meaningful aesthetical experience and extensive knowledge of the concept of Contemporary Environmental Romanticism in relation to the nature and culture of the Maldives. That way, audiences may apply their knowledge and daily experiences to the understanding and appreciation of this particular environmental case. Consequently, we are looking for an unusual treatment of the Maldives pavilion, something in the direction of how Contemporary Environmental Romanticism underlines the interpretation of nature as a source of aesthetic experience.

Being Europeans and Arabs the appointed curators wish to partially capitalize on their diverse cultural identities (West and East). On the one hand Western thoughts concerning nature has been marked by dualism, the notion of the opposition of nature and culture. On the other hand Eastern thoughts consider nature a guide / source of intellectual and spiritual inspiration, because in the Eastern thoughts the natural world simply “is” the law, and human activities are adjusted according to its mechanisms.