“…” The QMA Artist Collective 2024 presents Fragmented Worlds – Common Grounds, an exhibition that explores the dynamic potential of artistic collaboration in a hyper-globalized world marked by fragmentation and crisis. Seventeen artists were paired by the curators and prompted to engage with the challenge of creating across time, space, and varied artistic languages in a process over 10 months.

At the heart of this exhibition lies the potential of collaboration – a spark that turns disconnection into creation. The artists delve into humanity’s fragile ties to nature, layered histories and archeologies of self/ves or the intricate interplay between technology and ecology, offering us a nuanced perspective on basal topics such as belonging, separation and communication through their works. What may initially seem fractured or disparate transforms, as separate voices harmonize into the polyphony of a cohesive whole, inviting us to uncover connections within complexity.

Céline Struger and Francisco Valença Vaz explore the Anthropocene’s impact through speculative scenarios combining found and artificial objects. In this desperate environment, the works may question what remains from modernity in a world that can only smell like gum benzoin and freshly unfolded iphoneshadows, depict both tangible remnants and projected forms. Steel and plexiglass structures evoke a futuristic excavation site, displaying ‘modern fossils’ made of plastics and toxic materials, resembling ancient relics and referring to today’s environmental toll. This site-specific structure invites viewers to reflect on their relationship with culturally significant objects and questions whether these ‘fossils’ signify a posthuman future.

FC: Zoe Opratko