Speechless, a new work by the Rotterdam-based artistic duo Bik Van der Pol (Liesbeth Bik and Jos Van der Pol), is a multilayered exploration of how we speak about the precarious state of the natural world. The work consists of a custom-built aviary, which houses four parrots taught to mimic phrases from T.S. Elliot’s seminal 1922 poem, The Waste Land, comparing landscape devastated by war to the ecological devastation of today. The aviary is furnished with a jumble of sculptural letters that spell out the terms “global warming,” “climate change,” and “sustainability.” Part poetic gesture and radical expression, Speechless addresses the power of language within political contexts, and our ability to understand and discuss environmental degradation. The work was inspired, in part, by recent debate in Florida’s state government regarding the use of controversial terms such as “climate change” and “global warming.”

You can see a video on the work here.

Pamphlet produced on the occasion of Bik van der Pol’s exhibition I’ve Got Something In My Eye at CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art. For this project, Bik Van der Pol brought together works from the Marieluise Hessel Collection, selections from the collection of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, their own works, and ephemera from the CCS Bard archive. Following Henri Bergson’s idea that perception is a function of time, the artists allowed themselves to look at how works potentially are surrounded by different sources of knowledge and how they sometimes grow from and are feed back into these connections. Objects, once acquired for specific reasons, are in a constant flux of changing meaning, both in the context and dynamics of a collection (which means continuously in the company other concepts and perceptions), as well as in time.

After exploring the museum’s collection and vast archive of history of exhibitions, books, leaflets, documents, newspaper clippings, and recorded speeches, this exhibition project by Bik Van der Pol presents a selection of more than 70 works from the collection of the Kunstmuseen Krefeld that address the landscape in art, industrialisation, climate change and the disappearance of nature. Departing from the Krefeld collection, Bik Van der Pol explore what shaped the 20th century and still shapes the present.

The title is taken from a review of the 1971 Haus-Rucker-Co exhibition in Haus Lange titled COVER. In the course of that show, Haus Lange was transformed into an artificial climate zone, at that time already calling attention to the growing problem of environmental pollution and its consequences for mankind.

After exploring the museum’s collection and vast archive of history of exhibitions, books, leaflets, documents, newspaper clippings, and recorded speeches, this exhibition project by Bik Van der Pol presents a selection of more than 70 works from the collection of the Kunstmuseen Krefeld that address the landscape in art, industrialisation, climate change and the disappearance of nature. Departing from the Krefeld collection, Bik Van der Pol explore what shaped the 20th century and still shapes the present.

The title is taken from a review of the 1971 Haus-Rucker-Co exhibition in Haus Lange titled COVER. In the course of that show, Haus Lange was transformed into an artificial climate zone, at that time already calling attention to the growing problem of environmental pollution and its consequences for mankind.

Produced on the occasion of Bik van der Pol’s workshop You Talking To Me? At 98 Weeks, Beirut, 12–18 October, 2012. In this workshop, participants travelled by taxis, talked with drivers, recorded their conversations, and returned with stories which were disseminated by public radio during hours negotiated with a radio station. The taxi was regarded as social place, as carrier and interface of public voice, knowledge/history, often across generations. By choosing the taxi, the project also subtly touched upon two major urban management issues in Beirut: lack of public space (spaces of collectivity) and transportation.

Produced as a contribution to the exhibition Commitment, een keuze uit drie jaar Fonds BKVB, Las Palmas, Rotterdam, 2002. The text which is derived from a fortune cookie, has taken various forms and media in Bik Van der Pol’s work since 2000.