NURTURE; NATURE. | JACOB TALBOT
Jacob Talbot focuses his research on the relationship between humans and nature, an inherently evolving relationship that is currently capable of generating a multifaceted debate, spanning from sociology to biology.
Talbot’s work is primarily based on photography, but the artist often employs different techniques to expand the expressive possibilities of the medium and explore both the physical and metaphysical aspects of an image.
Nurture; Nature. (2022) is a ‘living’ installation created to pose a simple yet crucial question: assuming that anthropogenic interventions and certain reckless human actions have already severely deteriorated the health of our planet, are we still capable of regenerating the world in a careful and sustainable way, or is everything already doomed to an inevitable end?
Nurture; Nature. consists of two single-compartment cabinets, hung side by side. The left cabinet is illuminated by artificial lights, closed with a transparent glass door, and filled with cables and ampoules containing soil and sprouts. The intention is that of recreate a protected environment in which humans assume the role of cultivators, tasked with nurturing, feeding, and preserving a bioactive ecosystem.
The right cabinet, on the other hand, is made of rusted metal, the door is open, and bushes of a magnificent bright green emerge from inside, uncultivated plants that protrude from the small space available to them to expand. This is a hypothetical vision of what would happen if an environment occupied by humans were then abandoned and thus left under the full control of nature.
We live in an era that forces us to confront the paradoxical situation in which in certain densely populated places – large cities and urban centers – concrete and steel, with their gray and sterile colors, dominate the environment, suffocating and suppressing vegetation. Therefore, specific ‘green areas’ are created to cultivate and preserve nature, even though this process itself actually has nothing natural about it.
The choice of how to behave and which future to direct our energies towards is solely up to ourselves.
Jacob Talbot
Nurture; Nature. , 2022
Mixed media living sculpture
© Jacob Talbot, courtesy the artist
24/02/2024