We Thought We Were Alone
We Thought We Were Alone departs from a simple but urgent premise: life does not exist in isolation. Human, animal, and environment form a shared system of mutual dependence.
Across the exhibition, hybridity emerges as both method and message. Through crossbreeding, transformation, and collaboration, Vanmechelen’s work challenges fixed identities and proposes diversity as a condition for resilience.
Biology meets culture. Genome meets monument. The works function as living propositions suggesting that the future is not singular, but relational.
A central moment within the exhibition is the Wild Gene Festival, created in collaboration with Youssou N’Dour, where sound, ritual, and collective voice extend the project beyond form into shared experience.
We Thought We Were Alone prompts a shift from human autonomy over nature to the recognition that we are just part of a vast functional, interconnected system and that it is vital to maintain its equilibrium for our long-term survival.
- Curator James Putnam