Since her initial training at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and then at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, Vibeke Mascini has developed a unique and fascinating research that explores the transfer of energy and how decomposing matter can be transformed into a source of electricity. Often created in close collaboration with scientists, engineers, and/or musicians, her sculptures, installations, and videos aim to channel an intimate understanding of electricity by establishing a direct relationship with its source. Among the results of their research, the fat from a stranded whale, cocaine confiscated by customs, and the hydraulic power of melting glacier water have been used by the artist to generate electricity in poignant installations that offer a reflection on life and death, as well as the often contradictory interconnections between humans and other forms of life. Many ongoing projects explore unlikely sources from which electricity is generated through these processes of destruction. 

Her works Salvage (2019) and Instar (2021) thus focus on the recovery of energy, which is then stored by the artist in batteries and later reused in her creations to give new forms of life. This long-term research conducted by the artist, particularly on whales, is central to her artistic approach—conceptually, materially, and metaphorically. Throughout human history, the whale has indeed been used by humans for various products and applications, from fat for heating to creating light. Recently, scientific studies have found traces of human industries accumulating in whale tissues, making them one of the most polluted animals in the world. The whale's body thus becomes, metaphorically, a toxic archive of our relationship with the world.   

In parallel, with the work Lethe (2022), Vibeke Mascini explores a demolition process on a much larger scale—the destruction of a landscape, specifically the melting of a glacier in the Swiss mountains, under the increasing influence of global warming. Climate change has had a major impact on the Alps, with temperatures rising by two degrees Celsius over the past century. This ongoing ecological catastrophe is being repurposed by human industry, which generates electricity from the melting ice. With the agreement of the Swiss electricity company Kraftwerke Zervreila, Vibeke Mascini gained access to the facility where the company generates electricity from glacial meltwater. This meltwater accumulates in artificial lakes created by humans and is channeled towards turbines and generators located downstream, where it is converted into electricity. This transforms a natural reserve into a landscape of profit, where the negative consequences of climate change are converted into electricity production. .  

In her profoundly poetic works, Vibeke Mascini thus puts into perspective the transformations of our society in the face of climate challenges, immersing us in the contemporary quest for viable alternatives. 

Curator: Sandra Patron

Vibeke Mascini's exhibition, The world is a verb is supported by the Embassy of the Netherlands and the Mondriaan Fund.