The Earth Is an Artifact

For a latest exhibition referred to as “Diversion,” Asad Raza rerouted the Main River to circulation via Kunsthalle Portikus in Frankfurt. Then, he filtered the water to make it drinkable for guests. The putting intervention by the Buffalo-born, Berlin-based artist was meant to open up questions on distinctions between nature and tradition, and to encourage guests to work together with their on a regular basis environs anew. To talk about the implications of this work and others, Raza met with the thinker Emanuele Coccia on Zoom. Coccia is an affiliate professor on the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris whose ecological philosophy explores matters like vegetation and metamorphoses. Below, the 2 alternate ideas about remodeling the earth.

EMANUELE COCCIA I visited your present, however I admit that I didn’t drink the water. I had one thing vital the subsequent day, and I didn’t wish to threat getting sick!

ASAD RAZA You know, I labored with a hydrologist, and I informed him I wished to wash the river water utilizing quite simple devices that you’d have in your kitchen. I requested him, what if I go the water via a really superb espresso filter, then boil it and add some minerals? He stated really, that will be cleaner than most faucet water. So I did it, after which I drank it in entrance of the entire crew at Portikus to point out them that it was superb. I used to be nervous too! But it labored out.

For years, I’d been eager to divert a river via a gallery, and Portikus was the proper place. The constructing sits on an island in the course of the Main River, which is vast and has a strong present. I created a system of pumps and filters that introduced the water from the river as much as the mezzanine degree. From there, it flowed down via three pipes right into a channel throughout the principle gallery area. Visitors may wade within the flowing water; I pumped about 50,000 liters per minute. Then within the decrease gallery, we had a station the place a crew of custodians would take water out of the channel upstairs, convey it downstairs, and put it via the espresso filter routine I described, then supply it to the guests to drink.

Our society has largely turned rivers into visible spectacles—we eat dinners at waterfront eating places or we take a look at them from the window—however many people don’t really have interaction with them. I wished the present to assist you to each enter and drink the river water, which have been regular actions for a lot of human existence.

COCCIA You’re working at this threshold between artwork and nature. This reveals that nature itself is at all times the results of manipulation or transformation. Everything has been modified, remodeled, manipulated, or chiseled by artists—maybe nonhuman artists. In “Diversion,” you come into contact with a river remodeled by an artist, however that river was established by different organic and geological brokers. In a means, the murals is pure as a result of it’s been produced artificially—transformation is a serious a part of pure programs as we all know them. Similarly, your venture Absorption [2019–] is attention-grabbing as a result of it turned pure via a technique of transformation.

RAZA For Absorption, I created synthetic soil out of waste that I discovered in numerous cities. I’ve used hair from hair salons, in addition to beer barley, mushroom compost, and shellfish shells. In the museum, guests stroll on soil that’s unfold wall to wall, a foot deep. Visitors can take the soil away and use it to develop issues. The first iteration was in Sydney 2019, and the subsequent was on the Gropius Bau in Berlin in 2020. This 12 months, I did it at CCA Glasgow. 

You have a brand new guide out referred to as Philosophy of the Home. It jogged my memory of a present I did in 2015 referred to as “The Home Show,” for which I requested 36 individuals—artists, buddies, members of the family—to do some form of intervention in my life. Then I gave excursions to particular person guests every day for 5 weeks, enacting these interventions. Carsten Höllergave me a hallucinogenic toothpaste to brush with at night time for vivid desires. Sophia Al Maria scripted every day rituals: as an example, I needed to write down issues that I want to occur on a bit of paper, after which crumple it up and soak it in soy milk. Then I’d stuff that paper in my bathtub alongside a clump of her hair that she despatched me, clogging the drain.

COCCIA The guide got here out final 12 months in Italy and France, and it’s going to be launched quickly within the US and UK. I signed a contract to write down that guide earlier than lockdowns started. Then, I used to be caught writing a guide about residence whereas being locked in a house, which is mainly the definition of hell! Anyway, I wrote the guide after having moved 30 or 40 occasions in my life, as a result of I wished to know, what does residence imply? Why is it straightforward for me to really feel at residence nearly anyplace? When you’re transferring, it turns into clear {that a} residence isn’t at all times a lot a container as it’s the assortment of issues and other people you’re taking with you. This is attention-grabbing, as a result of it says {that a} house is a collection of components of the world, that it’s a group of issues that make up a spot the place you’ll be able to keep. To inhabit the world means to rework it—we chisel and innovate and metamorphose. When you’re transferring, often it’s since you wish to reside higher. If we take critically the concept we have to construct a house and rework the world to be glad, which means that morality is at all times materials.

RAZA This concept of remodeling the world by inhabiting it hyperlinks your new guide to its predecessor, Metamorphoses [2021]. Years in the past, I learn one thing that speaks to that time, and it actually struck me: apparently, when wolves have been reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park after a couple of century, one thing sudden occurred. The topography of the park started to vary. The rivers turned far more steady of their banks; because the wolves have been current, deer and different animals have been now not capable of eat as a lot vegetation—typically, they might solely nibble briefly earlier than having to sprint away once more, which allowed many vegetation to develop deeper roots, and enabling the banks to stabilize. I got here to see the wolves as, in a way, authors of the rivers.

This felt one way or the other philosophical, although it’s additionally a reality of the world. The river has performed an vital function in philosophy all through historical past, going again no less than to Heraclitus. I attempted to convey the precise river via the gallery as a result of I’m fascinated by the concept of the river as an entity that’s ceaselessly altering and reworking. Every second, the water is totally different; the Main brings snow from the Alps to the ocean. Only below modernist concepts of monadic topics and objects did we overlook that every one the world is present process processes of circulation and transformation on a regular basis. It’s a lot richer, for my part, to be in tune with these programs than it’s to attempt to assume some form of vital distance, or fake that topics and objects are steady entities.

I used to be happy that the individuals who have been most affected by “Diversion” have been Frankfurt natives. On the very first day, a girl got here in with tears in her eyes. She stated, “I’ve lived in this city my entire life, but I never touched this water until today.” By redirecting an entity that was already there, I wished to convey it into a special attentional area. Really, the venture is about remodeling the eye of the customer.

COCCIA The Indian American panorama architect Dilip da Cunha wrote a guide referred to as The Invention of Rivers [2019]. He says that the illustration of the river as a line—as water that flows from a sure level and ends within the sea—is already an act of design. The river shouldn’t be merely water flowing on high of earth; it contains wetness in numerous states. There’s flowing water, however there’s additionally underground water and water that falls from the sky. A river is simply the very fact of wetness, which is in every single place. The course of the river modifications over time, as does the amount of water. A tree subsequent to a river modifications the presence of this wetness. In a way, a river is a multispecies design as a result of it has been created by numerous interactions. 

RAZA For me, that’s why it was essential that the guests have the ability to stroll within the water and contact it and drink it.

COCCIA Where does your art work finish? You often can’t piss a murals on the finish of the day! The water that you’re taking from the river is “artified,” however ultimately a few of it’s going to in all probability find yourself again within the river. So in a means, the Main turns into an Asad Raza art work.

RAZA I thought of this extra with Absorption. Now the unreal soil is within the gardens, allotments, balconies, and flowerpots of assorted guests. I’ve additionally been looking for locations to place bigger portions when the reveals finish. I used to wish to give it to botanical gardens, however I discovered them to be nearly unimaginable to take care of, as a result of they’ve very inflexible concepts about soil and vegetation. Their concept of species shouldn’t be mutable or evolving—it’s about conservation. I may by no means persuade them that it’s OK to make use of one thing that wasn’t simply dug up from the bottom. I ended working with botanical gardens.

In Glasgow, after the present ended and all of the guests had taken what they wished, there have been nonetheless 20 or 30 tons of soil. We introduced it to a spot referred to as Govan Dry Docks, the place they’re utilizing it to create a brand new wetland to switch these misplaced to industrialization. This will create extra resilience [against storms and rising water levels]. In a state of affairs like this, you’ll be able to now not say that there’s a separation of nature and tradition.

COCCIA In a means, every thing has been modified and chiseled—you might say the complete earth is synthetic. The American geologist Robert Hazen explored why the earth has a higher number of minerals than different planets. The reply is that residing beings are concerned in lots of processes of oxidation, and this makes the very materials of the earth totally different from that of different planets. This signifies that the earth is an artifact. It’s produced by an enormous variety of species and people. In a means, all people is altering every thing, simply by the easy act of residing.

RAZA I typically expertise this sensation of unity amongst numerous residing and nonliving entities. But your discipline—philosophy—tries, for my part, to carry itself aside. Philosophers typically study issues as in the event that they have been separate from them. So I’m wondering, given the content material of your work, how you’re feeling about this tendency in your discipline.

COCCIA I feel that’s a really silly angle from a few college professors! If you take a look at the gathering of books that we’re obliged to think about philosophical, most of them have little in frequent. Plato has written literary texts; Marx has written texts on financial system; Lucretius wrote poems. Everybody wrote totally different sorts of texts, and all people’s claiming that philosophy is one thing totally different: totally different topics, totally different types, totally different strategies. Philosophy was invented in historical Greece, and the Greek phrase philosophy was the equal of the French novice, which suggests in a way, that while you say you’re a thinker, you’re saying you’re an novice, that you’re engaged on a topic however not as an knowledgeable however somewhat, out of ardour. Literally, philosophy means love of data or knowledge. Philosophy is simply each form of data that’s produced not by exact technique, nor by studying from a grasp, however by ardour. It’s data motivated by obsession. This could be harmful and even make you loopy. Also, every thing can turn into philosophy—chemistry, botany, artwork.

RAZA I really like this level, as a result of in my work, I wish to communicate to the one that comes into the gallery with out essentially figuring out something about up to date artwork. I cherished that a number of guests have been dragged to “Diversion” by their canines, who may scent the river water. Similarly, in Absorption, children would typically drag their dad and mom towards the sector of soil the place they’d run and play. What you’re saying is that when you begin with, say, chemistry, however then you definitely’re capable of say one thing that’s related not simply to chemists however to others too, then in a means you’re a thinker.  

—Moderated by Emily Watlington

This article seems within the December 2022 print challenge of Art in America, pp. 16-18.