Ruri ‘Endangered Waters’

Liget Galeria Budapest
Opening 28 March 2006

In her series of photographic and sound installations Endangered Waters, Ruri has archived elements of the natural landscape that are threatened with extinction as a consequence of human intervention. She catalogues the qualities of individual waterfalls in Iceland , preserving their unique sounds and appearance, for a future in which they may have ceased to exist. Today when we admire a waterfall, a river, a coastline, or any feature of the landscape, we no longer experience nature as unchanging, cyclical or eternal, but as vulnerable, temporary and at the mercy of development. Ruri’s work is both a celebration of the remarkable Icelandic landscape and a reminder not to take the look, sound and feel of nature for granted.

Ruri represented Iceland at the 50th Venice Biennale 2003 with the multimedia installation Archive - Endangered Waters. Her most recent projects include the installation Terra Vivax at the Vesuvius National Park in Italy , involving a delicately balanced nine-tonne cone of volcanic basalt, engraved with the names of all the volcanoes in the world that have erupted in historic time. She has also created powerful multi-media performances, such as Vocal at the Festival of Sacred Arts in Reykjavik in 2005, which unfolded as a vast video projection of a waterfall, accompanied with a soundtrack and live improvisation on church organ.

Ruri will be showing a photographic installation ‘Concept: Endangered Waters’ at the Liget Galeria Budapest from 30 March to 29 April 2006 . She will also be presenting her work at the symposium on Sustainability and Contemporary Art at Central European University Budapest, which is taking place 30 and 31 March 2006.