2023, Installation (Diazotype prints, Greenhouse, Silage film, Red light lamp, Chicken manure, Tools for creating diazotype prints), L400 x W500 x H300 cm
Hosted by Werkschau Kanton Zürich, Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich/CH
Installation view The gift exercise / Invitation 8.3: Nitrogen – Degrow!, Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich/CH (Photo: Peter Baracchi)
In a greenhouse converted into a darkroom, Willimann/Arai developed 400 diazotype posters with ammonia vapors from chicken manure. The 30 different slogans were created based on their extensive research into the history of the human interaction with the element nitrogen. This history suggests that the nitrogen problem is not only a metaphor for the dangers of the economical ideology of unlimited growth, but also the very manifestation of its life-threatening consequences.
Willimann/Arai propose a counter-narrative: Referring to European and Chinese alchemical literature as well as slogans from the French Revolution – in both of which nitrogen played a key role – their slogans recall the intertwining of the biological processes of birth and death of all matter through the restless circulation of the element nitrogen in the atmosphere – of which we as earthly beings are both dependent and part of.