Exhibition: Transformation
From a fossil society to a regenerative one
Works by Tom Albrecht
Photographs, text, installations, moving objects
Exhibition 27.5. – 22.6.2024
Introduction and guest book at the vernissage
Artist talk 8.6.Video 25 min.
End of exhibition 22.6., Tom Albrecht sings “Transformation”. Primobook Gallery
Transformation – Introduction to the exhibition
I am Tom Albrecht, the artist of this exhibition. I have been involved with sustainability since my youth, even though the term didn’t exist back then.
My neighbor Joseph Beuys inspired me for art back then in Düsseldorf and I started to create works. However, my career path led me to become an engineer and a master’s degree. From 1990, I worked as the first environmental officer at your German university, TU Berlin, for almost 20 years. I am concerned about our relationship with nature. I see the risk for us humans in the climate crisis, in the extinction of species. Nature is increasingly showing us its limits. The industrialized countries have been living the high life for too long.
I see the way out in the transformation to sustainability in ecological, social and economic terms. I am concentrating on the ecological aspect because I see the greatest deficits and the greatest danger there. We are in a major but too slow global movement away from fossil fuels and towards renewables. When it comes to energy, for example, we use more wind power, hydropower and solar energy instead of oil and natural gas. For example, we should use renewable raw materials and plastic that decomposes in nature.
We should accelerate the transformation. CO2 certificates will become much more expensive in 2028. We should also prepare for this. Germany is on the move, but still too little. The climate crisis is getting closer. It gets warmer, drier, there is heavy rain. The industry sees the opportunities. However, other countries are still relying on fossil fuels, such as Russia, but the USA and China are increasingly switching to solar energy.
The current crises, such as the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine, are not making the transformation any easier. The fossil fuel industry and its lobby have full coffers and are putting the brakes on. For example, 44% of Springerpresse is owned by KKR, a holding company that makes its money from fossil fuel businesses.
Transformation to sustainability needs democracy, dialog and science. This allows us to utilize all of our strengths, making us freer and more efficient.
For myself, my ecologicalr footprint. What do I use to produce my works? I use a lot of found objects. How do I travel, whether by train or plane? We also have an ecological handprinthow do I appear to the outside world, e.g: I am showing an exhibition on sustainability here. I am voting for a party for climate protection. I founded a non-profit gallery for art and sustainability “Group Global 3000” in 2012. We are currently showing the 64th exhibition “Cat washing. Climate protection with displacement.”
In my works here in the exhibition, I show the many references to transformation. I try to find images for their process: for the change, the risk, the brutality, the compassion, the history, the being stuck, the omnipresence, one’s own concern and one’s own ability to act.
I will be happy to discuss the individual works in my artist talk here on 8.6.
From the guestbook: The works are really interesting, well done and imaginative. My “favorite” is the mussel!
Video of the introduction by the artist
