So long, and thank you for all the fish, 2023

So long and thank you for all the fish is a new site-specific installation commissioned by the 14th Gwangju Biennale, Korea. Inside a former Buddhist temples basement at the sacred Yangnim mountain, Jordan creates a mirrored universe. The installation stretches over three rooms: a wet room mediating in the middle between the two rooms on the side wings which are opposing and mirroring each other. The u-shaped layout of the rooms requires the viewer to constantly go back and forth. Therefore they pass the wetland room, which connects and balances the universe, and which is immersed in black light and contains a pool of water and water plants growing between the healing stones and originate from the environment of the temple's ecosystem. The installation is inhabited by a series of robotic critters, part of Jordans Artificial Stupidity (AS) series (2016-ongoing): a moving eye, right and left oscillating crab arm, an octopus garden, a barnacle, which is reduced into its existing form as a penis, five extraordinary clone brains and the master brain of James Lovelock. The title of this work refers to a quote out of Lovelocks latest book the Novacene (2019). Just as the environmentalist and futurist Lovelock, who’s magnificent brain she like to pick, Jordan observes and analyses the environment and possible futures surrounding us, especially the ocean, which she has been exploring as a free diver since young age. Another protagonist created for this temple is The Godess of the Sea, a seaweed dancer which refers to all life forms, from heaven to earth, from soil to plankton which is accompanied by a Zen Gong for buddhist ghosts swarming in the temple and a possibility for the visitors to meditate with the cloned brains and contemplate with them. The installation feels to bring us back to deep time, where it all began, long long time ago, or maybe we just have been catapulted into a distant future?

Anne Duk Hee Jordan, installation view at the 14th Gwangju Biennale Courtesy the artist and Gwangju Biennale Foundation, Horanggasy Artpolygon, 2023 Curated by Artistic Director Sook-Kyung Lee, Associate Curator Kerryn Greenberg, and Assistant Curators Sooyoung Leam and Harry C. H. Choi Text: Pauline Doutreluingne 3d Design: Andrea Macias-Yañez Technical engineer: Andreas Marckscheffel Organization: Miriam Neubauer Photo: glimworkers