Re-Connections: In Kinship With Nature November 30, 2023 - January 15, 2024

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. - Chief Seattle, Duwamish

Re-Connections explored themes of environmental activism through artistic expression and features artworks addressing a range of concerns the world is facing due to climate change. This in-person exhibition, held in the lobby area at the UN Gallery, included work by twenty-six artists and is meant to inspire visitors to take action and help reverse the trend.

Physical, spiritual and ecological themes from our natural world, and their implicit interconnectedness, have been rooted in ancient and Indigenous philosophies for centuries. Contemporary ecological beliefs hinge on this idea. To further illustrate this concept, All Our Relations is an Indigenous prayer of oneness (Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ in the Lakota language), seeking to live in kinship with nature, in harmony with all forms of life: animals, birds, insects, trees and plants, rocks, rivers, mountains and valleys, and human beings. Zoroastrianism, widespread in Iran and Central Asia in the 6th century BC, through caring for the elements and the earth, sees the physical world as a natural matrix of Seven Creations: Fire, Sky, Water, Earth, Animals, Humans and Plants. Purity of nature, in their tradition, is seen as the greatest good. Similarly, other ancient philosophies are concurrent with self-identification of being “at one” with nature and natural phenomena. They lead to ecocentrism and a holistic ecological attitude of “respect for nature.”

Re-Connections, also an online exhibition includes thirty-one international artists and was organized by Laziza Rakhimova in collaboration with ecoartspace, and supported by UNDP Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Program and UNEP.  Online gallery

A R T I S T S  F E A T U R E D  A T  U N  G A L L E R Y  I N C L U D E D

Kim Abeles*

Maria Antelman

Olive Ayhens

Mandy Barker

Edward Burtynsky

Catherine Chalmers*

Elizabeth Demaray*

Kris Graves

Todd Gray

Tanya Harnett*

Valerie Hegarty

Betsy Kenyon*

Oskar Landi

Christopher Lin*

David Maisel*

Lenore Malen*

Mary Mattingly*

Garth Meyer

Bebonkwe/Jude Norris*

George Osodi

Laziza Rakhimova*

Aurora Robson*

Alexis Rockman*

David Benjamin Sherry

Tattfoo Tan*

Marion Wilson*

* M E M B E R S