Tension of Human Life - The heartbeat & myocardialcontraction

Nervousness, fainting, pallor and even death can emanate from the heart. Heartinduced flushed faces might accompany a moment of embarrassment, but also signify excitement and tension. The heart supplies itself and the rest of the body with blood and essential nutrients through a process of rhythmic contracting of the myocardium. It is able to release an enormous flow of energy, and the pulsing of the heart is the guarantor of life. A heart beating out of time doesn’t go unnoticed for long.Tachycardia can soon lead to acute heart failure and unconsciousness. A heart constantly pounding too hard will destroy itself through hypertrophy and ineffectiveness. A permanently racing heart leads to reduced performance and even total failure. While the brain isn’t able to damage the heart, the heart can significantly impact the brain – evidenced by acute heart failure inevitably leading to brain death. Heart fibrillation can fire embolisms through all arterial blood vessels, and upon entering the brain – a likely eventuality – the consequence of strokes and associated disabilities are life-threatening. If the heart beats too heavily over years, the threat of virtually irreversible vascular dementia brings cognitive decline. Nele Brönner presents a black and white ink drawing, flanked by a poem. Her work is inspired by the morning light as a metaphor of supernova. Philippe Leonard shows two of his “Rubriques Nécrologiques”. Obituaries are pasted onto wooden boards in the streets of the southern Italian village called Nardò. Each layer interacts with each other and gets transformed by rain and wind over time, creating a palimpsest of letters and textures reminiscent of past lives carried in their matter, they seem to be cartographies of souls.

Group Exhibition, Mein Blau Projectraum, Berlin 2020