Dried leaves, seed-pods, shells and other organic materials, made strange and preserved with wax, or refined with pearls, are Barbara Davi’s sensual source material for many of her works. In juxtaposition with historical documents, the installation-based works of the Lucerne artist, born 1971, achieve a narrative dimension that is both subtle and enigmatic. Collages and objects are presented as cabinets of curiosities, in which both the odd and the documentary find a place. She was awarded Lucerne Art Society’s Exhibition Prize for her installation exploration at the annual exhibition of Central Swiss Art in 2005.

The monographic exhibition NANTUCKET in the Museum of Art Lucerne continues Davi’s interest in the found object and the secondary arenas of history. Nantucket, an island south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, has represented whale-hunting on a large scale since the 17th century. The whaling industry had reached its high point in New England in the 19th century, and provided the raw material for lamp oil, grease, soap, candles and perfume, and brushes and corsets were produced from the baleen. Barbara Davi uses Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick (1851), which uses Nantucket as one of its settings, as a reference, along with historical documents concerning the early oil industry and man’s exploitation of nature. She doesn’t only examine whale oil, however, but also other contemporary forms of energy provision, which are transposed to a contemporary context.

In her new project she examines the relationship between man and nature, and critically engages with the treatment of resources. Davi impressively transforms the dimension of the exhibition space, which we get to see from an unfamiliar perspective, into a symbol of seas that have been emptied of fish.