1. activity

Research into the Valley of the Possible

CONTEXT |

It was cold when we woke up in our van one morning in May 2017. Rain had fallen throughout the night and the surrounding mountains were covered in snow, enveloping a mysterious valley. It was nearly the end of a three-year journey from Canada to Chile. A journey that made a profound impact on the way we came to understand our world. But first, we wanted to explore this valley, which could bring us closer to the Sierra Nevada. Behind that mountain range, the promise of even more wilderness beckoned. The wish to explore a seemingly untouched valley pulled us in like a magnet.

PROJECT |

We wanted to explore this valley, which could bring us closer to the Sierra Nevada. Behind that mountain range, the promise of even more wilderness beckoned. The wish to explore a seemingly untouched valley pulled us in like a magnet.

That longing for undiscovered terrain, terra incognita, was also what motivated Alexander von Humboldt, one of the great heroes of science. Von Humboldt was an explorer, philosopher, writer, inventor and naturalist: someone who investigated nature through the lens of science and art.
Traveling the grand and wild landscapes of North and South America, we had time and space to reflect on our urban western way of living, increasingly detached from our natural surroundings, with ecological catastrophe as a result. For the first time in our comfortable lives we were confronted with the effects of our capitalist culture: hundreds of wildfires in Canada, a decade of drought in California, melting glaciers in Peru, but also advancing globalization and the impoverishment of indigenous cultures. We witnessed at first-hand how social and ecological injustices are closely related.

All of these themes strengthened our wish to start a meaningful project:
a place where we can help redefine our relationship with the Earth. In a time where wilderness is hard to find, we want to offer the possibility of rediscovering it. This doesn’t have to be a sentimental story, as nature contains plenty of opposing forces, violence and peace, life and death, but also a mutual dependency, cohesion and an unparalleled power to regenerate. It is within this wild natural context that we want to provide a safe haven where artists and scientists, keen observers of our current times, can exchange ideas, establish new perspectives and generate work. A place where art, science, technology, economy, culture and nature support one another, just as Von Humboldt saw his work and the world around him.
We strongly believe we can help influence the debate about climate change, ecology and mass extinction through the arts. That collaborative interdisciplinary research and the experience of being away from an urban context, can translate into new works and renewed outlooks. And that this narrative will find its way all over the world through awareness, exhibitions, installations, discussion and events.

We explore the imaginable, the (un)thinkable and the potential.
Welcome to Valley of the Possible.