Earth Gazes Back II
Monfort Gallery, Obala 8, 6320 Portorož
02 April – 31 May 2026
The international exhibition presented at Monfort Gallery connects art, science, and the European cultural space
in a reflection on the planet at a time of deepening crises.
Our planet is in crisis. But today we can no longer understand crisis as a single event or an isolated threat. Climate change, the depletion of natural and human resources, wars, technological control, the collapse of ecosystems, and the loss of communities are becoming ever more entangled in a dense, unstable reality. In the past year this feeling has only deepened further: we no longer live on the threshold of change, but are already navigating its accelerated current.
Earth Gazes Back II is an exhibition concept and part of the international project More-than-Planet, which opens a space for reflection on how we perceive, represent, and understand our planet today. The exhibition is based on the conviction that the images, maps, measurements, technologies, and languages through which we describe our world are not neutral. They are part of the world, while at the same time revealing and reshaping it. The first version of the exhibition was presented at Gallery Valve in Oulu, Finland from September 25, 2024 to January 19, 2025.
What is a planet? What are a forest, a mine, borders, landscapes? How is our knowledge of the environment formed, and who produces it? Which forms of knowledge do we consider reliable, and which remain unheard? The exhibition moves between scientific observation, artistic research, local knowledge, and technological systems of sensing, while opening the question of how to develop environmental literacy and understanding at a time when the future is becoming increasingly uncertain.
At Monfort Gallery of the Piran Coastal Galleries, a former salt warehouse situated by the sea, the exhibition takes on an additional spatial resonance. Monfort is a place of history, materiality, and transition; a space where mineralogy, infrastructure, memory, and the world’s historical and economic flows converge. For precisely this reason, it is an especially fitting framework for reflecting on a planet that is not a distant abstraction, but a material, political, and sensory reality.
The exhibition features works by Baran Caginli, Cesar & Lois, Felicia Honkasalo, Mari Keski-Korsu, Kotryna Ula Kiliulyte, Minna Långström, Antti Tenetz, and Spektr Z/Marko Peljhan. Their works bring together remote sensing data, photography, video, installations, artistic research, and the sciences in a shared reflection on a world that we can no longer understand apart from its crises.
Earth Gazes Back II is not only an exhibition about the planet, but also an exhibition about the conditions of seeing and observing. About how we see, from where we look, and what remains invisible in the process. In a time of uncertainty, it invites us not only to seek new images of the world, but also new ways of coexisting with it.
A further important dimension of the project lies in its European scope. Earth Gazes Back II is conceptually connected to the ISOLABS project, developed within the framework of the European Capital of Culture GO!2025 Nova Gorica–Gorizia, while at the same time, through its presentation in Slovenia, it establishes an important link with the Capital of Culture Oulu 2026, Finland. In this way, the exhibition acts as a cultural bridge between European spaces, institutions, and communities, confirming that culture plays a key role in rethinking Europe’s shared future.
The original exhibition was developed within the framework of the More-than-Planet project, funded by the European Union in the period 2022–2025. The project More Than One Understanding of Planet Earth (More-than-Planet) brings together remote sensing data, artistic research, citizen science, and contemporary artistic photography.
Project partners included Waag Society (the Netherlands), Ars Electronica Center (Austria), Leonardo/Olats (France), Makery (France), and Projekt Atol (Slovenia). The Finnish partners were the BIOS research unit, the Oulanka Research Station of the University of Oulu, the research and testing organization Callio Lab operating in the Pyhäsalmi Mine, and the Kerttu Saalasti Institute of the University of Oulu.
Colophon
Exhibition curators: Taija Jyrkäs, Darja Zaitsev, Antti Tenetz
Co-curator: Marko Peljhan
Exhibiting: Baran Caginli, Cesar & Lois, Felicia Honkasalo, Mari Keski-Korsu, Kotryna Ula Kiliulyte, Minna Långström, Antti Tenetz ter Spektr Z / Marko Peljhan
Production: Projekt Atol Institute & Piran Coastal Galleries
Co-production: Photo North – Pohjoinen Valokuvakeskus, Northern Photographic Centre Oulu, Finnish Cultural Foundation–SKR
Production team: Marko Gabrijelčič, Ieva Auzina
Piran Coastal Galleries coordination: Matic Bukovac, Niko Mally
Supported by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, ISOLABS, GO!2025, Oulu2026, More-than-Planet, Municipality of Piran
Developed within the framework of the international project More-than-Planet, co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme, and conceptually connected to the ISOLABS project, developed as part of the European Capital of Culture GO!2025 Nova Gorica–Gorizia.
The transport of the artworks for the exhibition Earth Gazes Back II is supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
