Lucy + Jorge Orta

The new Attenborough Arts Centre in Leicester inaugurates with a solo exhibition of the work of Lucy + Jorge Orta, from January 30 to April 24, 2016. The work on show draws a number of intersecting links between the scarcity of resources, species loss, climate change and migration. The centre piece to the exhibition is Symphony for Absent Wildlife, first commissioned by the Nuit Blanche Calgary in Canada, has been newly adapted to the gallery setting, to create an immersive audio installation experience. The audience encounters an orchestra of masked creatures sculpted from felt blankets, blowing tiny hand-sculpted bird whistles they grasp within their fragile ceramic hands. The musician’s bird song builds up to a dawn chorus with an abrupt censure, leaving the audience with a sentiment of loss. Unfolding in further galleries are sculpture from the series Life Line, Life Guard and Amazonia that weave a visual narrative, tackling issues of survival, and although many of the works were conceived over ten years ago, they are even more timely in view of recent events. Objects, vitrines and drawings derived from the artists 2009 expedition to the Peruvian Amazon, recount an oasis of diversity in a state of crisis. At the same time, they restore our focus to the world around us, the beauty of the millions of species both locally and globally that depend on the Amazon for their survival, and to the natural cycles of life and death