An exhibition entitled The Penumbral Age. Art in the Time of Plentary Change at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland comprises the work of more than 70 artists including Cape Dorset’s Qavavau Manumie. The West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative recently caught up with exhibition curators Sebastian Cichocki and Jagna Lewandowska to discuss the project.

Perhaps we can begin with an introduction to the curatorial framework of The Penumbral Age. Art in the Time of Planetary Change. At a first glance, this exhibition is seen as addressing environmental issues, which of course it does, but as we consider it more closely, The Penumbral Age is a complex platform for many other discussions. In that context, can you tell us more about the project?

This an exhibition focused on the long history of land art. Though, our understanding of land art as an artistic genre is rather flexible and open. We embrace all the practices related to environmental issues, agriculture, land use and its interpretation, both studio-based, abstract, poetic, as well as engaged, activist, interdisciplinary ones. We don't limit it to any particular medium, or a moment in history nor any geographical region. Basically, we believe, as the philosopher Timothy Morton put it, that all art is ecological. There are many topics we wish to bring to our audience, such as environmental justice and the notion of deep, geological time. We do our best to keep this exhibition open to interpretation and not to treat it as a merely illustration to some current debates related to the climate crisis. Poetry and not-knowing is the most efficient tool to imagine a different, better world for all of us.

The exhibition includes many of the most important modern and contemporary artists; which makes it very exciting that you’ve involved Cape Dorset Inuit artist Qavavau Manumie. Can you tell us more about how you came to know Manumie’s work?

We discovered the remarkable Qavavau Manumie’s drawings during the pre-exhibition query while investigating the Toronto Biennale program. Soon after, when you sent us a selection of works, we were completely speechless. The observations of Quavavau Manumie are unique. The place where the artist lives and creates is directly and radically experienced by climate change as a result of which the ice covers are melting and the natural cycle in which fauna and flora functions is disturbed. Organically, therefore, this theme permeates the artist's art. In his works Manumie talks about everyday life, filtering it through the incredible imagination and symbolism that we have never encountered before. We are very happy that the Quavavau Manumie’s drawings have reached Warsaw and we can show them in a place of the world where we are just beginning to acknowledge the irreversible changes that affect the lives of us all when it is already too late.

Can you tell us how Manumie’s unique perspective contributes to the broader curatorial conversation proposed by The Penumbral Age?

It was very important to us to present the voice of artists working outside the Eurocentric art canon. The presence of Quavavau Maniumie's works, as well as other artists destroying the modernist order that is drawn so strongly in the history of art known to us, is very important, especially when the phenomenon of all beings on our planet is depicted. Dealing with such a monstrous phenomenon as climate change requires the introduction of multiple narratives and many languages of expression. It is necessary to clash orders, underline the polyphony that does not exclude anyone and from which we can learn. Manumie's works teach sensitivity and empathy towards other beings coexisting with us. They are one of those visualizations that knock out the familiar thinking paths and allow to unite in completely new imagination channels. We wanted to present the widest possible perspective of artistic observations and techniques. In The Penumbral Age we appeal for extending the concept of land art, a field known from art history, to include all artistic practices that tell about the earth and are created for the earth, without dividing the genres of art, epochs or the latitude from which artists originate.

Do you see a larger role for Inuit art and Inuit artists in these more globalized examinations of ‘change’ through the visual arts?

Art offers unique tools to trigger our imagination, helps us to get attuned to the voices of nature and overcome our fears. Art of Indigenous artists has a special role to play here, as they are usually witnessing all those drastic climate changes firsthand and they can report on it, using visual languages. Looking at the many gorgeous examples of Inuit art, being more and more present in the realm of contemporary art, we can observe how it resonates globally and help us to re-imagine the relationship between species and envisioning the new, more symbiotic way of coexistence, with all the living creatures and matter on Earth. We believe there are many misunderstandings related to contemporary art and it demonstrates the inadequacy of asking questions such as “what does this mean?” “what is this for?". Learning from Inuit art gives us an opportunity to refrain from answering such questions and opens us to weltering in not-knowing.

Our current moment in history presents us with much uncertainty and many questions. This new environment has shifted typical discourse and preempted usual thinking. In light of this, how has the relevance of the exhibition changed or transformed?

We are looking up to some artists who have been working with these environmental issues for many decades, like the Pakistani sculptor Rasheed Araeen or the Polish neo-avant-garde heroine Teresa Murak - they make us think in terms of a deep planetary metamorphosis. This is where inspiration comes from. We need to think the unthinkable. There is an urgency to remodel our relationship with other living, sentient beings and the planet itself. We are indeed in a serious crisis. According to some new analysis we might face the collapse of civilization in the following years. What is to be saved? This is the biggest question, we ask both as art workers and human beings. Do we need museums, collections, tangible artworks? We have to admit that contemporary art is lumbered with a number of serious shortcomings, like a tendency toward exaggeration, extravagance, competitiveness, elitism, overproduction, pomposity, and wastefulness. As a result, we lose what is most precious. The practices of artists engaged collectively in generating social change and focused on daily chores, unheroic and unspectacular and not always resulting in a tangible work of art, escape the institutional radar; often, they migrate beyond the art world. This is what we believe might be the future of art in the times of planetary change: leaving the contemporary art bubble, in the search for a new, more equal and compassionate world.