August 17, 2021  

DRIFT, EGO at Carré, Royal Theatre Amsterdam (2021). Photo by Ossip van Duivenbode, xourtesy of DRIFT. 

“Evolution is our goal; becoming better people. Technology is only helping us to get there."

Using sound, movement, and film by the multidisciplinary Amsterdam-based artists DRIFT, Fragile Future transforms The Shed’s galleries with experiential multi-sensory installations that suggest alternative solutions for a positive future. It will present five newly commissioned works, collectively featuring sound art, kinetic sculpture, and film. DRIFT manifests the phenomena and hidden properties of nature with the use of technology in order to learn from the earth’s underlying mechanisms and to re-establish our connection to it. Another work, titled Ego, consists of a large block of hair-thin threads, illuminated and suspended in mid-air. The exhibition culminates in a series of multi-channel projected films, Drifters, which follow a group of concrete blocks that float through dystopian environments in New York City and elsewhere, in search of their destination.

“What we would like to address is that change is actually something that is natural to us,” Gordijn added. “Although humanity has tried to block this out and build controlled environments, we are actually made to change and to constantly adapt to our environment. This is what we need to learn again, to be part of nature, to be adaptive to our space.”

DRIFT, DRIFTER at CODED NATURE, Stedelijk Museum, 2018. Photo Credit: Ronald Smits. Courtesy of DRIFT. 

As for the London event, the Japanese-British group, Studio Swine, will bring a stimulating exhibition called “Silent Fall” to the historic Burlington Gardens. Silent Fall, also happens to be about climate change. The piece is meant to recall life evolving in the ocean at the dawn of time, as well as a possible future where real forests have gone extinct.

“It’s sometimes very hard to bring the right message in a group show, in a museum,” Gordijn said. “Superblue is actually the first organization or collective that helps artists that have these bigger ideas that don’t really fit into the current systems… It’s, for us, an incredible opportunity to finally be able to show our work in the way it was meant to be.”

On select dates throughout the run, Drifters transforms into a surreal immersive performance that spans The Shed’s four–story-high, 17,000-square-foot McCourt space. “Fragile Futures” by DRIFT will view at the Shed from September 29 to December 19, while the “Drifters” performance will show on October 23 and 24, along with November 12, 14, 19, 20, 21.