Plänterwald : Solo Exhibition, Or Gallery, Vancouver

Abstract

Lynne Marsh, September 7 — October 12, 2013 Curated by Mark Lanctôt and Jonathan Middleton Shot in an abandoned former GDR amusement park located just outside of Berlin, Plänterwald is a film about the gradual processes of decay and overgrowth. By choosing as subject a forgotten place of leisure that to this day remains gated and guarded by security guards, Lynne Marsh draws a telling parallel between the spaces of spectacle, of control and of Nature. The passage of time, as indicated by how submerged in foliage the corroding site has become, turns the fun park into a sylvan pastoral. Plänterwald marks the first of a series of exhibitions and projects curated by Mark Lanctôt and Jonathan Middleton under the title The Troubled Pastoral. The series takes on a broad set of themes including pessimism, psychedelia, altered states and drug use, black comedy, science-fiction dystopia, class struggle (within the context of an increasingly marginal or absent middle class), the industrialization of food production, the ragged edge of suburbia, and various forms of visual, aural, or perceptual interference, including smoke, static, and electro-magnetic radiation.