11. June – 4. July 2021
Cabinet Exhibition
in the context of the Gallery Weekend of the Galerien der Kasseler Südstadt e.V.
In September 2018, on Monte Serra, a wooded mountain range between Pisa and Florence, a forest fire rages with destructive force on an area of 600-700 hectares. The burnt, coal-black and dust-dry remains of the forest, devoid of any life, created a scene of melancholic post-apocalypse and are the starting point of the project "Ashes to Ashes" by artist Jeewi Lee.
In "Ashes to Ashes" Lee produces (15 x 7.8 x 2.5 cm large) soap sculptures that contain, in addition to natural oils, the particles of the burned trees of the Tuscan forest. Ash, as a symbolic, purifying element and charcoal, as a pigment for the soap sculptures. In each soap Lee prints by hand, similar to a seal stamp, the burnt bark, leaving traces of the erased past in the newly made soap. This resulted in over 500 soaps, one-of-a-kinds.
As destructive and fatal as these fires seem to be for the earth, paradoxically, in the apparent process of annihilation of natures, their resurgence is already inherent. The system of nature is more capable of survival than the destruction brought about by human beings.
Juliet Kothe
www.jeewi.de
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Friedhof und Denkmal e.V.
Zentralinstitut für Sepulkralkultur
Museum für Sepulkralkultur
Weinbergstraße 25–27
D-34117 Kassel | Germany
Tel. +49 (0)561 918 93-0
info@sepulkralmuseum.de