Drive to Survive

with Bella Hunt & Ddc and Southway Studio

Curated by Emmanuelle Luciani

17 November — 16 January 2023

Drive to survive, drive to escape. Accelerate, move forward on the straight line of progress. To heat the asphalt, foot to the floor, then to dash towards the sky, to pierce the clouds, to dominate the clouds, and, finally, to rush towards the stars, to tie up with the celestial bodies, and to continue. From the automatons of the Basileus to the dazzling progress of modernity and the atomic age, through the optimistic reveries of Jules Vernes, technical progress had never ceased to be both a radiant fantasy and the very physical embodiment of Humanity's efforts to control its environment and gain in time, speed and comfort.

The shock of Hiroshima and nuclear proliferation first, then post-modernity, the climate crisis and the awareness of the harmful effects of globalisation, have gradually given technology a disturbing face, even in its most everyday avatars. From being a symbol of emancipation and prosperity, the car has rapidly become an emblem of climate change. The anxious and burdensome 21st century is taking the once celebrated beauty of speed off the horizon.

Bella Hunt & Ddc, in this exhibition curated by Emmanuelle Luciani, pays homage to the futuristic utopias of the 20th century and gives back to the heat engine, to the nocturnal and synthetic world of modern megacities, and to machines all their impetus, in a saving jolt, conjuring up the solastalgia of a sclerotic world.