M.H.G: Three Personalities for a New Ecological Memory

Curated by Paolo Emilio Antognoli and Daniela Stöppel

Kunstraum München, München, Germany, 2011

The exhibition is structured on the memory of three historical characters: Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740 – 1799), Gogliardo Fiaschi (1930 – 2000), Masanobu Fukuoka (1913 – 2008); a Swiss naturalist, a Japanese farmer and an anarchist of a small Italian city, with a common thread that talks about ecology and creativity. De Saussure, one of the founders of alpinism, actively contributed to the conquest of Mont Blanc, he wrote scientific essays and invented the solar oven. Gogliardo was an anarchist activist and a leader of an ecologist protest, he contributed to the closure of an highly polluting industry of pesticides: the Farmoplant of Massa (Italy). Fukuoka was the father of natural agriculture, inspiring all the natural farming practices from the synergistic to permaculture. He selected varieties of rice and barley dryness resistant and invented the clay seed balls to combat desertification.

De Saussure, Gogliardo Fiaschi and Masanobu Fukuoka are three important figures for the ecologist memory of our planet. Their presence acts as a platform for research hypotheses and creative solutions for a new society based on convivial and de-growth – concepts can be found in the writings of Ivan Illich, Serge Latouche or Wolfgang Sachs as well as in the artistic research of Michelangelo Consani. The exhibition presents three films, three portraits and three books each of them dedicated to one of three characters.