RESORT
Luzia Cruz, Malin Dorn, Maximilian Glas, Klara Kirsch, Jáno Möckel, Rodrigo Rosa, Anna Stüdeli and Akinori Tao
Structured by the idea of ‘tour’ - a journey for business or pleasure - the tourism industry has grown massively in the last century, sustained by a well-spread logic of commodification of pleasure. As free time slowly turned into a product, products such as resorts started to emerge. Offering anything from unlimited food, drinks and activities ranging from scuba diving to sex or safaris for a fixed price, preferably somewhere sunny, these spaces stand as all-inclusive, autonomous islands, the ultimate product of the leisure industry.
And yet, like with any other industry, this comes at a cost. As an economic activity based on using material resources in order to fulfill immaterial needs, tourism is to a certain degree a phenomenon of evaporation, a big stream vanishing in space as water leaves (or overfills) the ground. Thus a couple of questions may be asked. For instance, to what extent is tourism following the same principles of overproduction of other industries? Are ecosystems absorbed as a sub-product, an exquisite version of experience? Should this hyper-version of experience be seen as a reflection of the promise of a hyper-version of oneself?
Focusing on the threshold of leisure and consumption, the aim of “RESORT” is to capture and mirror the tension between these issues in space. The exhibition thus works as a form of material survey, presenting a multitude of artistic positions navigating the relation between waste and desire.
Curated by Guilherme Vilhena Martins