The visual artists and founders of the nomadic project space Stay Hungry, Michel Aniol & Meike Kuhnert present the immersive installation Strange Paradise. The collaborative solo exhibition can be seen from 19.10.-23.11.2024 on the occasion of the annual program Habitate at the project space SCOTTY. 

The works on display in Strange Paradise deal with a new form of ecology caused by an emerging post-Anthropocene and its effects on the encounter and interaction between nature and the current and future legacies of human civilization. The omni-present global warming processes and the resulting destruction of nature create new situations every day in which the fauna and flora of our planet are confronted with the effects and traces of human activity. In addition to the well-known displacement and extinction of many animal and plant species caused by changing temperatures and thus climatic conditions, as well as the complete destruction of biotopes and ecosystems and the progressive contamination of soil, air and water, there are also situations in which nature and human-induced changes are breaking new ground and forming a kind of pragmatic unity. 
These semi-artificial, ecological niches and the imagination of their formulations and possibilites in the future are creating the base of the artistic investigation for Strange Paradise and the resulting works by Michel Aniol and Meike Kuhnert. The installative elements of the exhibition draw on the aesthetics and functionality of vivaristics and aquaristics, where the objective is to artificially create a natural habitat in the human environment and keep it alive in order to enable the care, study and breeding of animals and plants as close to nature as possible. 

Strange Paradise visualizes possible scenarios of a not-too-distant and undefined future in which these new encounters between nature and human-made remnants of civilization are presented and tested. One part of the work focuses on the still largely unknown and complex life under water and in particular on the ecology of so-called Anthozoa/ flower animals, better known as stony and soft corals. In a experimental process, everyday objects were produced from concrete, which have been colonized and kept in hydroponics with corals and other marine organisms for a year in order to simulate a reconquest of future habitat by marine life. Another part of the installation is dedicated to terrestrial habitats, in which a transition from human culture back to a new naturality is depicted.