La Métacrise

Beautiful Wasteland
Text by Marsha Taichman

La Métacrise was created as a prelude to the Metamonument project, which is a constellation of physical and virtual works to be presented in January 2026. Building on previous exhibitions such as Anthropocene and Capitalocene, La Métacrise demonstrates how ecological incidents are intimately linked to international economic and political crises. The viewer is confronted with global warming, class inequalities, overconsumption, persistent colonialism, globalization, and recurring wars, all of which decimate natural resources and are symptomatic of late capitalism.

Parc Industriel shows a concert of smokestacks silhouetted on a bright yellow background. The tone is somber, save for pops of sparkles. It is a wasteland, aestheticized. Continent de plastique depicts a hyper-coloured iceberg with pieces splintering into the water, much like the Depotior, where we are faced with a mountain of glittering, geometric debris being dumped by a green truck. The truck is tiny compared to the huge amount of waste generated. Can the garbage be processed into something new and beautiful, or is it merely a site of bright landfill? A yellow bulldozer, also dwarfed by the coloured clutter, seems to make no headway with what has been left behind. We are left with a graphically appealing futility, trash buried into strata of black and purple earth. No solutions are presented, but problems are certainly exposed.