The artist group SUPERFLEX submerges ARKEN beneath the surface of the sea, inviting audiences to imagine the exhibition space, The Axis, as a contemporary ark. Which species and life forms will come along, and what will we leave behind as the ark moves into the future with its cargo?
The exhibition presents works from more than 30 years of SUPERFLEX’s practice. It also introduces a new, site-specific project created for Come Hell or High W ater, which in the years ahead will be deployed in oceans around the world.
SUPERFLEX has famously stated that the best idea might come from a fish. If so, the second-best idea may have come from SUPERFLEX themselves. In this solo exhibition, the Danish artist group takes as its point of departure the possibility that, centuries from now, ARKEN may lie beneath the sea. The museum is reimagined as a modern ark for all species — like a sunken vessel resting deep below the ocean’s surface.
At the entrance, sandbags and barricades suggest attempts to keep the water out, while raw shipping crates are stacked throughout the space. These crates contain works spanning more than three decades — from early pieces from 1993 to new productions —forming both an archive of SUPERFLEX’s practice and the cargo of a ship: ready to be transported, opened along the journey, or perhaps left behind. Curator Dorthe Juul Rugaard explains:
“Come Hell or High W ater unfolds as a space for collaboration, imagination and preparation for the future to come. For SUPERFLEX, the life forms of other species and interspecies coexistence serve as a source of inspiration for transforming human anxiety about the future into action.”
In recent years, SUPERFLEX has developed works that function both as art and as habitats for fish and other species. This practice culminates in the exhibition’s new long-term project, The Ark Factory. At the centre of the exhibition, a factory-like space presents the collective’s ongoing production of sculptural blocks for a large-scale ark, intended to create improved conditions for marine life.
These blocks will function as an artificial reef, supporting biodiversity as sea levels rise. Elements of the ark will be placed on the seabed around the world, becoming a vessel for interspecies coexistence — an ark carrying life into the future, with or without humans on board.
Text by ARKEN
