Many and One Print

In the end of the 2020 year I received the invitation to participate in a new exhibition “Earth.ver.20.21”. Artists were invited to think about the future of our planet. So I’ve been thinking about it for several months. There are people who try to understand the importance of the harmonic interaction between Human and Nature, and the number of them increases from year to year. The paradox is that nothing really changes for better in our environment. If there are some changes, they are so tiny that they cannot overcome the huge negative impact of human activities on our planet. I think that at least part of the problem is related to the philosophical presuppositions of today’s science. First of all I’m talking about Cartesian dualism that had formed the philosophical foundations of the Modern science. According to Descartes there exist two substantially different entities which by definition cannot, but, nevertheless, interact with each other. From this assumption followed the conclusion that the human mind and Nature exist separately. Moreover, humans were identified with their minds, not with their bodies and Nature. From this way of reasoning follows that it doesn’t matter what happens to our bodies and environment because these are just some sophisticated mechanisms, which can be fixed by scientists whenever it’s needed. Some aspects of this philosophy and its consequences you can see in the painting “Many and One”. The title of the painting refers to the fourth hypothesis from Plato’s dialog “Parmenides”. There is the second painting from this series that shows another possible way to future of our planet.