Project Description

“We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental. Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature.”1

Today, all our lives are affected by the ongoing ecological crisis and climate change. Oceans and continents have suffered as a result of human activity over the last millennia, a process greatly accelerated during the past few decades. Some people are trying to mitigate the ecological crisis using a technological or economic approach. However, the benefits of these solutions are minimal, with new technologies prone to continue to pollute our social and natural environment. What matters need to matter today? Our contention is that by going back to the original source of our created matter we can rediscover our responsibility to all of God’s creation, nature, environment and human life alike! 

According to the Bible all matter originates from the Creator. The Author of the extravagance of creation is also the One who is generous in giving it away for care and protection. In the Creator’s plan, every creature has an intrinsic value and He entrusts all this to the beings created in His own image – human begins. The Bible also tells us about the fall of human beings and how His creatures’ sin now reflects upon the suffering of all created matter. The anguished groaning of the environment reflects the human sinfulness and suffering. This is the message that the Bible can bring to the global communities now affected by the social and environmental crisis. The visual art project Matter Matters has as its purpose to establish an important dialogue about environmental protection through artistic expressions. We want to bring the biblical concept of stewardships into different cultural contexts where there’s an urgency with regards to issues of environment protection and protection of human life. 

Arts offer a powerful language which can speak into one’s heart and generate deep reflection whether by watching a painting, listening to a piece of music, enjoying a dance performance, or reading a book. Nobel Prize laureate writer Saul Bellow once said: “Only art penetrates what pride, passion, intelligence and habit erect on all sides – the seeming realities of this world. There is another reality, the genuine one, which we lose sight of. This other reality is always sending us hints, which, without art, we can’t receive.”2 The project Matter Matters is an international visual art project that will include a launch exhibition, discussion forums which will provide a platform for conversations, and a catalogue which will include both art works prints and relevant articles on the topic of environment. The project asks the artists to seek and portray challenging realities through artistic expressions in order to stimulate participants and viewers to a conversation about the restoration of our human relationship with the natural environments. 

The project Matter Matters will last for three years and will take place in various locations, in order to stimulate a meaningful dialogue about these important social and ecological dimensions of our societies, and how we should go about seeking reconciliation with ourselves and the created order. 

                                                                                                                                     Wu Yuerong

                                                                                                                                Kunming 6.2018