Photo Maxim ShumilinProgress (Jinn in a Bottle)
The installation comprising an open bottle and visible traces – referring to a jinn which has just been released from the bottle – is a metaphorical image of human progress.
Today, the world is facing a vast number of problems that have been foreseen back in the seventies: climate change, scarcity of fertile land, mass extinction of biological species and overpopulation of the planet. Continuous economic growth and increased use of resources are usually considered an unquestionable norm. Whilst about four billion people live in difficult economic conditions, are threatened by natural disasters or military operations.
At the same time, modern societies have reached a certain level of economic well-being, developed scientific knowledge and technological capacities, sufficient to finance and implement transformations that could create a rather sustainable world.
The artist contemplates creation of a qualitatively new paradigm. How useful and possible can it be to abandon the utopia of the “invisible hand of the free market,” which seemingly automatically creates harmony and well-being?
The work is inspired by the report of the Club of Rome "Come On!: Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet".
Installation.
Labirynt gallery. Lublin, Poland. 2020.