Akku kunstkiste uster

This solo exhibition unfolds from the perspective of ecological diaspora and queer ecology, tracing the interrelations among climate crisis, identity, and the fragile coexistence of living beings.

The point of departure is a set of A5-sized advertisement boards I collected in Vienna—promotions for a local snow-clearing service company. Yet during the several winters I spent in Vienna, it never snowed.

“In a city where snow no longer falls, can a company that survives by clearing it continue to exist?”

What begins as a simple curiosity becomes a poetic inquiry into the material reality of global warming. I regard the company as a small, unintended victim of climate change—a mirror for all ordinary lives bound to the shifting rhythms of the planet.

These advertisement boards, fragile and utilitarian, are repurposed into tactile poems. Wrapped and sewn with vegetable paper and textiles, each surface bears the trace of long nights of repetitive labor. Every stitch becomes a delayed prayer for those—human and nonhuman alike—silently affected by a warming world.

Another installation features small car air-freshener trees, each coated in layers of urushi lacquer and ash, forming a grey, mist-like forest. The urushi—a natural tree resin rooted in Chinese tradition—embodies both ecological wisdom and cross-cultural continuity, speaking of preservation, mourning, and protection.

On the floor, a constellation of Swiss chocolate rabbit boxes, also repeatedly lacquered with ash and urushi, takes form. These rabbits serve as metaphors for non-binary identity, evoking the ancient verse from Ballad of Mulan:

“The male rabbit kicks up dust, the female’s eyes are misty; when two rabbits run side by side, who can tell which is which?”

In my universe, rabbits and trees, snow and ash, gender and ecology are not opposites but intertwined beings, breathing together in a shared atmosphere. Through patient, repetitive, and tender gestures, I invite everyone to relearn how to breathe—with nature, with time, and with our own fragile ecologies of being.

Artist: ??? Ni Daodao

Curator: ??? Fu Congle