Anne Duk Hee Jordan
Worlds Away

alexander levy is pleased to present Worlds Away the first solo exhibition of artist Anne Duk Hee Jordan at the gallery.

Transformation and transience are the starting point for many of the works by Anne Duk Hee Jordan. In a playful way, she explores ecological and socio-political themes and questions how humans and non-human beings can live together in an environment in flux. Referring to the theories of Post-Anthropocene, humans play a subordinate role in her works, as she focuses on the smallest hidden organisms and processes. Jordan seeks to explore and expand the boundaries of the possible, translating the complex ecological problems of our time into visually experiential, romantic, and humorous worlds.

In the exhibition Worlds Away, individual works are combined into a spatial concept. A cycle is created that runs from the depths of the ocean up into terrestrial spheres, only to descend again to organisms and living beings deep and below the earth. 

Upon entering the gallery, visitors become part of a vivid immersive world. In traversing the deep blue space illuminated by black light, one encounters sea creatures in various media glowing in photoluminescence. The immersive installation Worlds Away transmits the world of the deep sea to visitors auditorily, visually and haptically. While lying on a pedestal bed construction, one can listen to the abstract sounds of the underwater world, which sound designer Filip Caranica developed for the installation together with the artist. Around one can observe the inhabitants of the deep sea, small floating sculptures hanging from the ceiling inspired by phytoplankton, a self-sustaining microscopic seaweed. In Worlds Away a reality far removed from the destructive forces of humankind become visible.

After the ocean, the second part of the exhibition moves to land and light. Anne Duk Hee Jordan’s multi-part work Twilight was originally created for Artificial Biotopes. Lehmbruck, Kolbe, Mies van der Rohe and Anne Duk Hee Jordan at the Georg Kolbe Museum. The installation cites Mies van der Rohe’s architectural concepts. By means of swinging mirrors and colored glossy foils on the windows an interplay of inside and outside is created, which is repeatedly refracted by reflections. In addition to sculptural elements, the gallery space is also populated by plants: artificial biotopes with their invisible inhabitants, air plants, and an electrically operated water basin with growing waterlilies and duckweed. In this environment, questions arise about alternatives for the further development of the understanding of man, nature and technology. 

In the video room downstairs, curator and visual resarcher Pauline Doutreluingne’s and Anne Duk Hee Jordan’s video Brakfesten is on view. The project was created on the occasion of the exhibition Out of the Sky, into the Earth at the Gotland Art Museum, and consists of a public sculpture and the video. Brakfesten focuses on the Swedish nature reserve Södra Hällarna, where the elmtrees are infested with bark beetles and threatened with extinction. But it is the small and invisible inhabitants of the area, the beetles and spiders, captured through macroscopic shots, which are the protagonists of the video work. They personify the cycle of nature, the complexity of the network of mutual dependencies, functioning and food chains in the forest. 

For the installation Worlds Away:
Textile design: Kye Hee Yoon and Anne Duk Hee Jordan
Sound design: Filip Caranica and Anne Duk Hee Jordan