Mark Dion: Theatre of the Natural World at Whitechapel Gallery, London, 14 February to 13 May 2018
THE more I see of Mark Dion’s work, the more it says to me about the unsustainable conditions of the Anthropocene, and the mindset we will need if we are to change course.
Works created since 2000 are the subject of a forthcoming show at London’s Whitechapel Gallery. And if you can’t get along to that, get hold of the 2010 exhibition catalogue for Travels of William Bartram Reconsidered, in which Dion retraces the steps of the 18th-century naturalist William Bartram.
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When Bartram explored the south-east of what is now the US in the early 1770s, he discovered gopher tortoises, sandhill cranes and rivers overflowing with trout and bream. Retracing Bartram’s path in 2007, Dion found golfers, retirees and highways jammed with SUVs. Undaunted, he set out to observe and record suburbia with the same objectivity Bartram brought to those territories.
By playing the role of naturalist, Dion uncovers the past and potential impact of our scientific endeavours. “Humans do not stand outside of nature,” he has written. “We, too, are animals, a part of the very thing we have tried to control, whether for exploitation or protection.”
Since the early 1990s, he has explored this relationship between humans and nature – a relationship that has become increasingly troubled, and the troubles increasingly apparent.
Dion traces the origins of the natural sciences to the legacy of Aristotle, whose ranking of animals above plants was enshrined in his hierarchical “ladder of being”, the Scala Naturae. (In 1994, Dion built an absurdist version of the Scala as a domestic staircase, with a statue of Aristotle on the top step; the stair below is shared bya stuffed duck and domestic cat.)
Over the years, he has reorganised objects in museum collections, constructing “cabinets of curiosities” that disrupt traditional hierarchies. The living world deserves new systems of categorisation, partly because we need multiple perspectives to stand a chance of solving the world’s ecological problems, and partly because the acts of collecting and categorising bring us face to face with our assumptions.
“By playing the role of naturalist, Dion sets out to discover the impact of our scientific endeavours”
For me, this is what makes the Whitechapel exhibition especially interesting. It will feature one of my favourite works, Costume Bureau: a set of four mannequins wearing different outfits Dion has donned for past projects, ranging from a bleached white lab coat to the rough kit of a field biologist (pictured above). This brilliantly embodies Dion’s clearest job description, given in an interview to the magazine Art21: “I’m working through the natural sciences as a dilettante.”
I see Costume Bureau as both an invitation and a challenge. All of us can and must actively rethink our relationship with nature. Our future depends on the intellectual activism of amateurs.
More spring events
Tuesday 20 February
Engineer and broadcaster Mark Miodownik will reveal how materials science is set to shape our future in his Lecture at London’s Royal Society.
Friday 23 February
Space physicist Michele Dougherty, lead scientist for uncrewed missions to our solar system’s outer planets, shares some at the Royal Institution, London.
2 to 4 March
Can music understand, modify, simulate and even create life? The University of Plymouth hosts the Arts Contemporary Music Festival 2018, which will showcase some extraordinary technologies that are pushing the boundaries of music.
Friday 23 March
David Attenborough will open at the Yorkshire Museum. The new permanent exhibition brings the epoch to life using the latest research and technology.
Saturday 21 April
from Nature opens at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, presenting fashionable dress alongside natural history specimens to explore the complex relationship between the two from 1600 to the present day.
27 April to 28 August
Original maps, artworks and journals feature in the British Library’s exhibition : The Voyages, marking 250 years since Captain James Cook’s ship Endeavour set sail.
5 May to 10 July
Space is the theme of the Royal Albert Hall’s first ever , and they are throwing everything at it, from film and photography to quizzes and kids’ shows. Oh, and there is music.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Ordering the world”
