The University of Manitoba campuses are located on original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Ojibwe-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. More
Artist Name: Gustav Bulzgis
Title: CYNEFIN
Medium: Digital rendering
Year: 2020
Artist Statement:
Cynefin, both a corporate model of decision making used to navigate global complexity and a Welsh term loosely translating to habitat/familiarity.
The foundation of a repeated individualist response to perceived global instability and ecological distortion has been a retreat inwards towards the small controllable interiors of the body and domestic space, and if possible, to the interiors of digital worlds. Within CYNEFIN, a primate is staged to relax and explore a seemingly endless body of viscous fluid, embodying a common media archetype of easily distributed animal videos, ones that share traits of simplicity and escapism. A retreat towards understandable space combined with a growing fascination for non-human content has become a dominant (yet passive) language of the “Anthropocene”. This language doesn’t seek any qualities of shine; its manifestations are bodily, abject, and paradoxically confusing.