Chang Hanna
Humans treat nature. In doing so, we may feel a sense of superiority, or we may feel remorse.
By contrast, in the artist’s gaze, nature is the subject. Wind and waves, the heat of the sun, diverse forms of life, and the mechanisms of evolution are the agents. They operate by making use of human-made objects and pollutants as material. The artist observes how nature processes the artificial.
These processes are recorded in the form of specimens, drawings, photographs, video, text, and installations. Rather than defining or interpreting meaning, she remains an observer, accumulating nature’s modes of operation and their results. Unlike humans who judge, desire, and seek justification—she captures a nature that, without intention or purpose, circulates even the artificial into the ecosystem.
Within Hanna Chang’s work, the belief that humans stand outside nature begins to blur, and the viewer finds themselves standing in the midst of nature’s indifferent workings.