Caring for what is extinct. Arts creating alliances with nature

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to experience knowledge, to put oneself in a state available to collect, to place, to feel; to be ready of decyphering the signs. This paper is based on the exhibition of the Portuguese artist Gabriela Albergaria, entitled A Natureza Detesta Linhas Retas (Nature Abhors a Straight Line), curated by Delfim Sardo at the Culturgest Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal, in 2021. The article begins with a description of the contextual framework involved in conceiving her artistic practice as a study case in relation to the environmental emergency. It then goes on to speculate on the role of nature as the only territory - crossed by essential elements - in her work. A nature manipulated, planted, transported, set in hierarchy, catalogued, studied, felt and recalled through the ongoing exploration of gardens with photography, drawing and sculpture, which Albergaria has experimented for the last 20 years. The article ends with a speculation on the strategies of transformation, reconstruction and assemblage in contemporary art. A reflection on the mark left by extinct creatures in human cultures and the artistic practices -action, performance- that are also becoming vanished. Occasional kinships mobilized by Vinciane Despret (Living as a Bird) and José Luis Viñas (on the extinction of lepidoptera - butterflies and moths) will serve to support some of the ideas of this study.