Alien Shores: landscape, once removed

The works in this collection showcase a type of distance from nature, a distortion or estrangement of the natural world to reflect this new and weakening connection “once removed” from its prior state. The title, Alien Shore, comes from the Latin poet Petronius, who wrote “seek out alien shores… he that disembarks on distant sands, becomes thereby the greater man,” as the exhibition urges viewers to understand the realities of the environment today. 

Sharing common themes of nostalgia mixed with anxiety, the group show combines paintings, videos, photography, and sculpture that are from another place and time, by artists including Marguerite Humeau, Georgia O’Keeffe, Isamu Noguchi, Darren Almond, Noémie Goudal, Sholto Blissett, Tomás Sánchez, Shara Hughes, Emilio Perez, Alyina Zaidi, Minoru Nomata, Fernanda Galvão, Richard Mayhew, or Ken Gun Min, among others. Void of any people, the artworks in Alien Shores capture the irony of worshipping the landscape from the human perspective amid our own destruction of that very same beauty. 

From a yearning for reconnection to a disfigured reality, this exhibition explores the intricacies of the landscape while probing questions to society on our treatment of earth. On display in London until September 7, this collection brings together sentiments from across the world for a powerful showing.