Home | News | The urgent need to avoid a sixth mass extinction inspires ‘End (two prologues)’, Dora García’s film for CNIO Arte 2024

The urgent need to avoid a sixth mass extinction inspires ‘End (two prologues)’, Dora García’s film for CNIO Arte 2024

21.02.2024

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Still from the film 'END (two prologues)' by Dora García, made for CNIO Arte 2024.

“We are headed towards the precipice, but we can still stop a catastrophic loss of biodiversity,” explains macroecologist David Nogués-Bravo, whose ideas are reflected in the film

Dora García, winner of the National Prize for Plastic Arts, stablishes a link among several endings in her work: those of the world [as we know it], of human life and of memory. A thought: “Once human species becomes extinct, the planet will continue”

The collaboration between García and Nogués-Bravo was forged in the Arctic, one of the areas of the planet where climate change is advancing at a fastest pace

CNIO Arte is an initiative run by CNIO, with the support of Fundación Banco Santander, to promote dialogue between artists and scientists

Climate catastrophe, human memory and the female voice are intertwined in END (two prologues), the film created for CNIO Arte 2024 by artist Dora García, winner of the National Prize for Plastic Arts in 2021, in collaboration with David Nogués-Bravo, macroecologist from the Globe Institute in Copenhagen. The film was presented at the National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO).

Dora García (left), Maria A. Blasco and David Nogués-Bravo./ Laura M. Lombardía. CNIO.
Dora García (left), Maria A. Blasco and David Nogués-Bravo./ Laura M. Lombardía. CNIO.

CNIO Arte is an initiative run by CNIO, with the support of Fundación Banco Santander, which promotes dialogue between artists and scientists as a means of conveying the importance of science for society. 

This seventh edition of CNIO Arte has focused on climate change. The two participants travelled to a location where the consequences of this global phenomenon are becoming apparent at a much faster pace than elsewhere on the planet: the Arctic. Following on from their stay last August in the archipelago of Svalbard (Norway), Dora García created the audiovisual piece END (two prologues).

“Climate change is one of the greatest problems facing humanity today,” said Maria A. Blasco. “This piece made me think that the message of science regarding climate change is very clear, transparent; that of art on the other hand is more personal and subject to interpretation, but equally necessary.”

Fragment of ‘End (Two prologues)’, by Dora García.

The Arctic landscape and James Joyce

End (two prologues) begins with reflections by Nogués-Bravo on the ecological reality of the planet with the landscape of Svalbard as the backdrop: “Scientists today have the data, methods and tools to know what will happen in the future and how we can avoid biodiversity loss. If we ignore this, we are headed towards the sixth mass extinction.”

However, says Nogués-Bravo, “the melting of the Polar ice cap is not irreversible yet, and panicking certainly does no good.”

There are already estimates of the cost of biodiversity loss “which equates to twice Spain’s annual GDP”, urging us to accept that “ healthy nature is nature that saves money”.

Dora García in front of her work, at the CNIO / Laura M. Lombardía. CNIO.
Dora García in front of her work, at the CNIO / Laura M. Lombardía. CNIO.

The work combines images of polar landscapes with scenes by Norwegian choreographer and performer Mette Edvardse while memorising the cryptic text of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (1939).

Loss of beauty

In the debate after the film screening, moderated by the curator of CNIO Arte Juan de Nieves, Blasco spoke of her own awareness of the implications surrounding the current environmental emergency: “I realised that climate change is not just going to affect what seems obvious, but it is going to mean a loss of beauty, of the possibility of finding certain drugs against cancer […]. It seemed so important to me that CNIO Arte 2024 should be dedicated to this subject.”

Nogués-Bravo, for his part, explained that macroecologists “try to have a global vision of the diversity of life, understanding that the planet is a connected system […]. 30 years ago we observed that even reindeer in the Arctic were responding to El Niño’s equatorial ocean current.”

Dora García and David Nogués-Bravo in front of the film 'END (Two prologues)'. / Laura M. Lombardía. CNIO.
Dora García and David Nogués-Bravo in front of the film ‘END (Two prologues)’. / Laura M. Lombardía. CNIO.

Understanding the implications of climate change

Dora García used Mette Edvardse’s work with Joyce’s novel, thinking “about the enormity of the task of preparing for climate change. I could only approach it with infinite prologues, to understand all the implications it has.”

Finnegans Wake ends in the middle of a phrase whose end is the beginning, and it deals with the death of the female character and that character is the river, the water, the sea, the mouth, like the ones we shot in Svalbard. It was a way of linking the idea of the end of the world with the end of human life and the idea of memory.”

The CNIO Arte stand at ARCO

END (two prologues) will be exhibited at CNIO until the next edition of the ARCO Contemporary Art Fair from 6 to 10 March, where CNIO will have its own exhibition stand once again this year  (9B29).

Symposium at the Thyssen Museum

In line with CNIO Arte 2024, next Wednesday, 21 February, the V Art and Science Symposium, entitled Art, Science and Ecology in the face of climate change, will be held  at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. The guest speakers include: Carlos Jiménez, Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics at the Universidad Europea de Madrid, historian and art critic; Esther Pizarro, multidisciplinary artist, researcher and professor at the Universidad Europea de Madrid; Anna Traveset, biologist and researcher at CSIC; Jaime Vindel, art and culture historian and researcher at CSIC; and the protagonists of CNIO Arte 2024, Dora García and David Nogués-Bravo.

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