About

Nausicaä breathes

Gladis strikes, we wish – no change

for our own demise.

Philosopher S.F. makes his artistic debut; a ceramic installation that takes the form of a sculptural Haiga — an art form that combines a haiku poem with painted imagery — at X Kabinett.

 Two unfired clay orcas, Gladis & Nausicäa, swim inside of an ocean of glossy ceramic shards — behind them, a haiku.

Since several years, Iberian orcas began to gain notoriety along the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal when they began attacking yachts and other boats whilst following shoals of bluefin tuna north from Gibraltar.

The poem’s reference is twofold; first it is a commentary on the orca uprising meme, a popular notion where the orcas are presented as maritime revolutionaries — sinking ships (when in fact they actually want to play).

Gladis is the name of the whale who supposedly started the trend, and it’s only this particular group living near Gibraltar who exhibited the behaviour.

Orcas often have these usually short-lived microcultures; another group of Canadian orcas was observed chasing salmon, only to wear them as hats instead of eating them (they are extremely intelligent in this way).

The second is a narrative reference to the Odyssey: Nausicäa is a young woman in the story whose name means “burner of ships”: Miyazaki chose the name for the title of his Manga which is about a poisoned earth where mutated nature strikes back.

In reference to the work, S.F. says “my comment here is on the human projection onto the orcas. With no revolution in sight, people project that wish onto nature (and might even begin to enjoy natural disaster one day). This, to me, is similar to a depression. A general one, when we start to blame ourselves and destroy ourselves…auto-aggressive, like an animal in a cage.”