b. 1988, London
Samuel Brzeski’s practice investigates perceptions and understandings of time on biological, social and geologic scales. Through the presentation and study of sites, situations and objects, the work explores existential narratives on ontology and the transient mortality of the human species. Taking both an archaeological and a speculative approach, the work investigates the narratives that are implicit in the objects, materials and resonances that are left behind, and presents possibilities and echoes of a potential future to come. Principally, these ideas concern the inevitable decline of humanity and the placement of Man’s existence on a larger, deeper timescale.
Through this investigation, which sometimes touches upon the sublime, the work focuses on the relation between the advancement of the human race in a scientific/ industrial/ destructive context and the negative effects that this has on the planet and its ability to sustain human life. Central to this line of enquiry is the contemporary paradox of the supposed advancement of humanity, which is actually the instrument of its own demise.