The exhibition will open on Saturday 21 May 2022 and will run until 30 August 2022 at O Gabinete de Madame Thao, LF Factory loft i2-07 in Lisbon.

Since we realized that the environmental situation, we are currently in was not just a temporary crisis, a new conceptual framework has emerged: the Anthropocene - identifying the era we have entered since the advent of industry and that characterizes the overall impact of human activity on the earth's ecosystem.

Carried by a Promethean momentum, humans have travelled miles since their initial fusion with nature, maintaining for centuries a position of dominance over it. Human understanding of “nature” and consequently its representation by artists has evolved according to the social perception of the natural world. Artists have incessantly observed and interpreted their natural environment, with its countless bizarre manifestations, wonders, and qualities, whether mirroring the anthropocentric vision of the world that prevails in our Western cultures or echoing a more ecocentrist attitude.

This exhibition presents a selection of works reflecting the artists´ personal relationship with nature within the Anthropocene context. Exploring the complex mechanisms that connect the self and its surroundings, Hoang Duong Cam operates a swap between the human subjects taken from historical archive pictures and their background landscapes, while Nadège David´s paintings reveal body parts or organs camouflaged in teeming jungles. Whereas the apprehension of nature through human activities such as running, partying or hunting is expressed in Bertrand Peret and Le Phi Long´s works, Francisca Carvalho, Pedro Proenca and Sandrine Llouquet draw their references from ornament, patterns, or encyclopaedic botanical illustrations.

O Gabinete de Madame Thao (OGMT) is a hybrid space and project dedicated to art and paper, founded by visual French/Vietnamese artist Sandrine Llouquet; on one hand, a contemporary art gallery and artist studio, on the other one a boutique of Asian handmade papers and second-hand books. OGMT is both a full-fledged artwork questioning the place of art and its contribution to tomorrow’s society and a community project aimed at providing a platform for talented contemporary artists. It is an approach that also aims to highlight the strategies put in place by artists today to survive without compromising their work and to build mutual aid networks.

Based on a simple idea of paper, the spaces that make up OGMT illustrate the different stages of creation: research (with the bookstore corner), production (with the paper corner, art supplies) and exhibition (with the gallery). In addition to this hybrid character, there is an event program drawing on various artistic fields (dance, music, theatre) and aiming to meet various audiences.

For more information, please visit https://ogabinetedemadamethao.com/.