CULTIVATE is pleased to join contemporary artist Artemis Herber for an artistic reflection on time, nature, and resilience. Herber’s recent project The One-Thousand-Year-Old Olive Tree Project, known as "L’Olivio Millenario Project," is a profound artistic undertaking that began during her Cultivate/La Baldi Residency in 2024. The project continues to evolve across various media and artistic practices, stemming from a transformative encounter with a thousand-year-old olive tree located on the farm at Poderi Borselli in Montegiovi, Italy. This ancient tree not only inspired a lasting relationship with its natural habitat but also prompted a deep and meaningful exploration of the temporal passage into the land.

The project was born out of a sense of wonder and reverence for the thousand-year-old Olivastra tree. This venerable tree became a focal point for artistic creation, embodying geographies, histories, and myths. The encounter with the Olivastra tree evoked a profound sense of Solastalgia—a term capturing the emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change—and a tangible presence through signs, marks, and erasure. This emotional and physical response to the tree's existence is reflected in the spirit of alchemy that permeates the new works, addressing both environmental concerns and hope for the future.

About: Artemis Herber shows where we currently stand. Humans have made the world fragile, and the collapse shows around each corner.

The German-Greek artist shows how deep time is transformed into fleeting moments through human activities. For this she primarily uses matter from geological time or materials that come out of the mining and extortion process.

In the wider context Herber explores how myths are revealed in the new human made top stratum through metabolic regimes and their tectonic intervention, exploitation, and the use of land. Enriched with incorporated geological materials, ancient natural myths, such as Gaia and their relatives, are displayed in her work as hybrid configurations of performance, and interdisciplinary installations in thematic spaces. These subjects open a time-spanning look at the relevance of grand narratives in the face of man-made “Erdauflösung“ (the disappearance of Earth’s critical zone).

Her new eponymous series of “Danger Zones” addresses the worldwide dwindling biosphere as an impact of the Anthropocene and creates a sculptural monument worth seeing.

Herber has exhibited in the US, Germany, UK, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Greece. Highlights include the Albright-Knox Gallery Art Museum NY, American University Museum of the Katzen Art Center DC, San Jose Museum of Art CA, Goethe-Institut Washington DC, National Trust’s Newark Park UK, Cheltenham Museum UK, Kunstverein Paderborn Germany, Spartanburg Art Museum SC, McLean Projects for the Arts, IA&A at Hillyer, Washington DC, and Munich International Airport, Germany.

Her research upon the Anthropocene embedded in the field of polit-myth and experimental geography has been deepened through residencies at Rensing Center SC, theCoLAB, London, and Skopelos Foundation of Arts, Delphi Residency, Greece, and the La Baldi Residency, Italy.

Public Art installations: Munich International Airport, Germany, Public Library Paderborn, Germany, Navy Pier Waterfront in Washington, DC, Patterson Park, Baltimore MD.  

Publications

Her works have been published in Voyage Baltimore, Magazine, Bold Journey, Magazine, Washington Post and catalogs of “Danger Zones, Hybrid Configurations within Reformed Landscapes”, “Mono-Pol-Lithic”, supported by the Maryland State Arts Council, Mapping Meaning Issue #4 - Life After the Anthropocene: Envisioning the Futures of the World, and Studio Visit Magazine.

www.artemisherber.com