About
Mycotopia
Nadege Meriau
15th June 31st August 2013
Private View: Saturday 15th June 4-7pm
Harvest event: Sunday 16th June 6pm (invite only)
Nadege Meriau is currently working on an evolving, edible and compostable installation to be installed at Anarch over the summer. Creating the conditions for mushrooms to fruit within the gallery.
This new commission is as much about biological and creative processes - the ability to adapt and the possibility of failure - as it is about a specific outcome. This project is made possible by the support of Anarch and the guidance of Fungi Futures, a social enterprise based in Plymouth.
For her solo show at Anarch, Nadege Meriau will present new photographic works alongside an installation made out of 150 hessian sandbags filled with shredded paper and mushroom spores.
Throughout the two month period there will be a series of events centred around Meriau's installation including harvesting, dining, discussion and exchange of ideas. Foragers, biologists and botanical writers will be invited to speak on subjects that invite discussion and encourage cross pollination of disciplines.
The exhibition and correlative events will investigate survival strategies on a global and personal level. It will point to the concept of resourcefulness, the ability to change and the necessity to establish physical and psychological boundaries in extreme situations. It will highlight the need for time and introspection as essential parts of the creative and biological processes.
As a response to limited financial resources and her wish to engage with waste issues she is shredding the paper herself from food packaging, newspapers, junk mail, bills and old birthday cards. This daily, repetitive activity of recycling has become an integral, unseen part of the artwork. This performative process of shredding, provokes reflection on the passage of time, food and waste cycle, and the predicament artists find themselves in sustaining their practice.
Living and working in London, French artist Nadege Meriau is a graduate of the Royal College of Art (2011). She was nominated for the Arts Foundation Fellowship in 2012, shortlisted for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries and the Conran Award in 2011 and was nominated for the Arles Discovery Award in 2012. Recent Shows include Academy Now, Hanmi Gallery, London 2013, Snow, Ilan Engel Gallery, Paris 2013,Tulca Arts Festival, Galway 2012, FFWE ,The Photographers' Gallery, London 2012. Nadege is currently an artist in residence at the Florence Trust, London.
