Viviana Druga
Viviana Druga

Dare to Look into the Abyss
/ Wage es, in den Abgrund zu blicken
Sculpture conceived for Klosterscheune Zehdenick, 2025

A European bison stands with its head bowed, gazing into the waters of an artificial lake. Beneath the surface lies a void carved by human extraction. Suspended between mourning and vigilance, the animal invites us to confront ecological grief, vulnerability, and the consequences of human power.

In *Dare to Look into the Abyss*, the protective energy of the bear mother migrates into the spirit of the Wisent. Once widespread across Europe, the European bison becomes a presence haunted by disappearance, its survival bound to human care. Its body carries the tension between ancestral strength and contemporary fragility.

The landscape of Zehdenick holds the material memory of clay extraction for Berlin’s brick industry. Former extraction pits have become lakes: wounds turned to water. Conceived in relation to this landscape, the sculpture gives the abyss a geological reality. The water conceals an excavated absence while reflecting the life that persists around it. The animal’s downward gaze becomes an encounter with a landscape shaped by exploitation and transformation.

The work also draws on interpretations of European prehistoric cave art as a space of ritual contact between human and animal worlds. Bison and figures combining human and animal features evoke porous boundaries between species, suggesting relationships shaped by dependence, reverence, and the desire to negotiate survival. These images offer a way of imagining an ecological relationship in which animals possess agency and humans acknowledge powers beyond their own.

The sculpture turns this ritual encounter toward mourning. The Wisent becomes a witness, holding ancestral vitality alongside the possibility of loss. Its bowed head suggests both descent and endurance: a gesture of attention to what has disappeared and what remains at risk. The work also asks how animals and landscapes become entangled in political mythmaking, including nationalist fantasies of origin, belonging, and power.

In dialogue with the ecological and decolonial thought of Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Banu Subramaniam, *Dare to Look into the Abyss* approaches grief as a relational experience. Environmental loss is inseparable from histories of extraction and domination, but also from the responsibilities that emerge through interdependence. Looking into the abyss becomes an act of sustained attention—to other species, to the histories held within a place, and to the fragile possibilities of living together.

Viviana Druga
Viviana Druga
Viviana Druga
Viviana Druga
Viviana Druga

Dare to Look into the Abyss
/ Wage es, in den Abgrund zu blicken
Sculpture conceived for Klosterscheune Zehdenick, 2025

A European bison stands with its head bowed, gazing into the waters of an artificial lake. Beneath the surface lies a void carved by human extraction. Suspended between mourning and vigilance, the animal invites us to confront ecological grief, vulnerability, and the consequences of human power.

In *Dare to Look into the Abyss*, the protective energy of the bear mother migrates into the spirit of the Wisent. Once widespread across Europe, the European bison becomes a presence haunted by disappearance, its survival bound to human care. Its body carries the tension between ancestral strength and contemporary fragility.

The landscape of Zehdenick holds the material memory of clay extraction for Berlin’s brick industry. Former extraction pits have become lakes: wounds turned to water. Conceived in relation to this landscape, the sculpture gives the abyss a geological reality. The water conceals an excavated absence while reflecting the life that persists around it. The animal’s downward gaze becomes an encounter with a landscape shaped by exploitation and transformation.

The work also draws on interpretations of European prehistoric cave art as a space of ritual contact between human and animal worlds. Bison and figures combining human and animal features evoke porous boundaries between species, suggesting relationships shaped by dependence, reverence, and the desire to negotiate survival. These images offer a way of imagining an ecological relationship in which animals possess agency and humans acknowledge powers beyond their own.

The sculpture turns this ritual encounter toward mourning. The Wisent becomes a witness, holding ancestral vitality alongside the possibility of loss. Its bowed head suggests both descent and endurance: a gesture of attention to what has disappeared and what remains at risk. The work also asks how animals and landscapes become entangled in political mythmaking, including nationalist fantasies of origin, belonging, and power.

In dialogue with the ecological and decolonial thought of Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Banu Subramaniam, *Dare to Look into the Abyss* approaches grief as a relational experience. Environmental loss is inseparable from histories of extraction and domination, but also from the responsibilities that emerge through interdependence. Looking into the abyss becomes an act of sustained attention—to other species, to the histories held within a place, and to the fragile possibilities of living together.

Viviana Druga
Viviana Druga
Viviana Druga
Viviana Druga
Viviana Druga