PLANKTON MANIFESTO MENORCA

Menorca, August 27, 2022. Menorca is one of the bases of PLANKTON MANIFESTO, a global initiative, which will travel to numerous locations around the world. Internationally renowned artist Katja Loher is hosting an event featuring artistic collaborations that include performances, surpise acts by invited artists, musicians and scientists, fashion and molecular jewels by co-manifesters Stories Milano. A new series of video-sculptures and outdoor installations by Katja Loher will be exhibited.

PLANKTON MANIFESTO is a collaborative and future-oriented movement based on art, awareness, and empathy. Local and international creators are manifesting their dreams through their knowledge, expertise, and experience sharing the vision and mission to preserve underwater life.

PLANKTON MANIFESTO draws attention to the invisible, threatened underwater world. This movement fulfills an important task of the 17 UN Sustainability Goals, specifically in the context of Goal #14 called “Life below water”.

Plankton sustain ocean ecosystems, serving as the basis of the marine food chain and produce a similar amount of oxygen as all of the world’s forests combined. The crucial role of phytoplankton as the gatekeepers of energy provision to all life in the oceans, may likely be altered by climate change.

Having lived in New York for 15 years, Swiss artist Katja Loher lives now between New York, Milano and Menorca. For the purpose of giving PLANKTON MANIFESTO a base, Loher and her team installed the P.Lab, an artistic lab in Menorca, a UN recognized Biospheric Reserve. They are commissioning research and documentation activities with the aim of making the beauty of plankton visible to the human eye. Loher’s new series, made up of organic shapes, present a video narrative inside glass sculptures. The artist collaborates with a team of designers, architects, video artists, composers, performers, glassblowers, and poets. To create her pieces, Loher conceives and directs the dance choreographies using a green screen in the bird’s eye view in combination with footage of nature. For this series Loher edited a dialog between the human dancers and the microscopic videos provided by the collaborative scientist Katja Peijnenburg, researcher and group leader ‘Plankton Diversity and Evolution’ at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, NL.

The notion of this new series represents the space of synthesis in which Loher, through her immersive installations, communicates her thought on the dangers of the Anthropocene, the geologic time, used to describe our period in Earth’s history, when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems.

Katja Loher is an international artist who has gained recognition among all kinds of art lovers, such as peers collectors, curators, gallerists. From the USA to Europe to China or Japan – her exhibitions have fascinated people for two decades .

Selection of Exhibition:

Boathouse New York, with Swiss Mission to the UN, New York, USA, 2022; Gitex Global, Word Trade Centre Dubai, UAE, 2021; The Upper House, Hong Kong, China, 2019; Swiss Embassy New Delhi, India, 2018; Core Club, New York, USA, 2017; Figge Art Museum, Davenport, IA, USA, 2014; C24 Gallery, New York, USA, since 2013; Kunsthaus Uri, Altdorf, CH, 2013; San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA, USA, 2013; MuBE, Museu Brasileiro da Escultura, São Paulo, Brazil, 2012; MAXXI Museum, Rome, Italy, 2010; United Nations Pavilion World Expo Shanghai, China, 2010; Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2010; Anya Tish Gallery, Houston, TX, USA, since 2009; Siggraph Asia, Yokohama, Japan, 2009; the State Hermitage Museum, St.Petersburg, Russia, 2005 and Art Digital, Moscow, Russia, 2005.

Selection of Collections:

Roche Art Collection in Basel, CH; Credit Suisse Collection in Genf, CH; Kunstdepot Altdorf, Altdorf, CH; Horsecross Collection in Perth, GBR; Figge Museum in Davenport, Iowa, USA; Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia, USA; New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT, USA; 21C Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, USA; Perez Art Museum in Miami, USA; eN Arts Collection in Tokio, Japan; und AAL Arte Al Limited in Santiago de Chile, Chile.