Artists Redefine Nature in the Post-Natural Era

The concept of 'post-nature' is reshaping contemporary art's engagement with ecology, as seen in exhibitions like Broken Nature, Il Giardino Planetario, and Rethinking Nature. Artist and activist Mali Wu, co-curator with Francesco Manacorda of the 11th Taipei Biennial titled Post-nature, explains that the term does not imply nature's absence but a shift in understanding—eliminating the human-nature divide, echoing Timothy Morton. Critic T. J. Demos of Artforum argues art can expose utopian myths underlying 'the natural'. Since 2006, Mauro Ceolin's contemporaryNaturalism project has catalogued silicon-based life forms from human imagination. Armin Linke, with Renato Rinaldi and Piero Zanini, created the film Alpi (2011), which Bruno Latour called the most acritical work on the total artificiality of the modern world. Laura Pugno's 2021 installation Over Time, set on Monte Rosa, presents three approaches to snow—from laboratory synthesis to glaciologist Michele Freppaz's perspective to immersive landscape. Ettore Favini's Verdecuratoda project created a field of ancient fruits in Turin's Falchera area, spreading to other sites. Francesca Pasquali's Labirinto installation blends plants and plastics, while Andreco's flags for marches defend nature, part of the Climate Art Project's Aula Verde. The article was published in Artribune Magazine #65.