In Dialogue - Nature

Two experts exchange their views on the central themes of Brücke art and connect them to current questions about art, art history and activism. With Kervin Saint Pere Huarcaya (artist and researcher) and Karen Michelsen Castañón (visual artist and art educator)

Nature plays a significant role in the works of the Brücke artists, reflecting an idealised and European perception of nature. In this tour, we explore key questions: What is nature? What ideas shape this concept? At the beginning of the 20th century, during the period of colonialism, the ideology of “primitivism” became increasingly prevalent. This perspective framed nature and culture as opposites and idealised the “natural” as something original. The Brücke artists were also shaped by this view. Their works often depict an exotically tinted and romanticised version of nature that does not reflect reality. To what extent does this view still influence our understanding of nature today? And what do we actually mean when we speak of nature today?

Kervin Saint Pere Huarcaya is a Peruvian artist and researcher of Indigenous heritage. He currently lives in Berlin and works as an art and research associate at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig. His artistic practice and research focus on decolonial theories and visual practices, with a particular interest in archival materials, ethnological museum spaces and colonial traces in urban spaces. Building on Aby Warburg’s visual studies, he reinterprets Warburg’s concept of an “afterlife” through a decolonial perspective.

Karen Michelsen Castañón (born in Lima, Peru) is a visual artist, filmmaker and freelance researcher. Her work deals with the way (colonial) histories are told and includes short films, photographs and textiles. She questions how hegemonic and invisible stories are re-staged in our daily lives and how this relates to current social events.

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