KARST: Faunal Succession, Lucia Pizzani

This exhibition closed on the 1st August 2026.

I have done a lot of thinking about this exhibition and I have come to conclusion that I was very lucky to see a version of it, even if it was not the iteration of this exhibition that most perfectly meets the artists vision.  This exhibition was initially shown at the Focal Point gallery in Southend and was in more than one different space with four films on in rotation on a big screen as well.  It is clear the  full environment of each space was fully considered and implemented in the original version.

It must be incredibly difficult to take an exhibition meant for a larger space laid out in a very different way and present it in a very different space that is much smaller.  KARST is a small independent art gallery that really impresses in it's ability to secure very high quality art.  This is not an art gallery that is able to move walls for each exhibition.  It has a fixed layout and the services are as they are.  I imagine there are budget constraints too, that encourage a flexibility with regards to amending the space.

I like my i's dotted and my t's crossed.  I want to understand how things should be.  I don't like the discrepancies, the things that feel not quite right.  It is my nature.  It really helped me to look at photos and a video of this exhibition and understand how the artist would be more ideally realis this exhibition, if possible.  Once I understand the source of the discrepancies, I know they are not something I am failing to understand.

For example, the first environment represented amber and had yellow walls and terracotta pieces.  The primary yellow felt to me like it clashed with the terracotta and didn't match what I associate with amber.  There were also pieces I would have thought fitted with this environment that had been placed at the back of the gallery.  There was an audio piece but listening to it in the headphones provided, placed me on the edge of the space, not immersed in it.  

Looking online I understood that this environment originally had it's own gallery with the audio playing freely and the shade of yellow as much less jarring and more what I would associate with amber.  Some of the pieces further in the gallery that I thought fitted in this environment had originally been in it and there were additional pieces that had not been included.

Understanding this mix of vision and compromise helped me appreciate the exhibition more.  Rather than viewing it as three immersive spaces, it is an exhibition of the items from three different environments with some basic attempts to amend each of the environments.  The gallery is perhaps easier to divide into four, rather than three and it is not possible to set up the spaces so they are completely distinct.

So step back, restart, look at the exhibition again, through a slightly different lens.

The first environment is amber which is an incredible substance.  It is fossilized tree resin and sometimes, it traps thing in it and preserves them.  The artists vision is to place us within the amber and to see all the objects as things trapped in the amber with us.  A time capsule.  

The original exhibition saw it in it's own gallery with one wall consisting of windows which had a yellow film added to it to make the light warm.  The walls were painted a soft ochre yellow that worked well with the terracotta of many of the pieces.  The audio played freely.

KARST do not have the same freedoms and so the space was smaller, the walls were a bright primary yellow that was a little uncomfortable with the terracotta and did not feel amber like, though it matched the light from the yellow film placed over the lights etc.  The point for the audio was a set of headphones on the edge of the environment.  The main entrance to the exhibition was into this environment, so pieces were orientated to make an impact as you entered but this then made a conflict with it being an immersive environment.

The first piece, Morochas Palmas, featured two large free standing pieces of terracotta decorated with black slip and palms sat inside.  Flora Totem Raices was another piece in the same vein but consisted of one large piece with no plants.  An additional terracotta piece was a wall sconce with a fishbone cactus.  There were additional wall sconces at the back of the exhibition that were from the same body of work.  I loved the bold forms in terracotta with the black slip and plants.  

The information suggests that pieces in this environment  have been carved in to with root vegetables from South America and imprinted with fossils.  I like this as a method for adding imprints into the amber of the space.  One piece was a terracotta mask that incorporated an ammonite.

There were also two Heart's Tongue fern beings where terracotta pots with a muslin skirt below housed fern plants.  The black slip was here used to suggest a face with eyes instead of the other abstract organic patterns.

The soundscape was made in collaboration with Javier Weyler and was called Sea and Shore.  Women read excerpts from a 60s textbook on seahorses that was written by a man.  These quotes were about survival of species, which included movement of species.  There is an interesting video on the Focal Point website where Pizzani talks about this aspect of the exhibition.  Drawing attention to female immigrants and their journeys in a subtle way, this is another imprint in the amber.  

The plants too, are immigrants in this space.

The second space features some lovely paintings by Jaime Gili, Pizzani's partner, that reinterpret early geological maps.  In the original exhibition, this part of the exhibition sat in a long narrow space where one side was a glass wall.  It looks like people could view these pieces from outside and it is not clear if people would walk through this space indoors or not as well.

In addition there were workshops run by Gili with schoolchildren and some of these works were presented in a display case in the original exhibition.  Although these works were mentioned, they were not part of the exhibition at KARST.

The original wall was a pinky beige rather than the pinky brown used at KARST.  I did not find this switch as jarring as the primary yellow though.

These pieces explore maps as a tool for a more emotional understanding of space.  They were earthy and warm pieces, organic in shape.  The paper was not square and it curled a little on the wall, not sitting flat.  These were pleasing pieces but I definitely needed the explanation!

Some of the pieces had clay elements included and there was also a clay spiral.  My favourite piece of the whole exhibition Totem antiguo.  This was an undulating tower of clay with a fern at the top.  Marks had been made in the clay.

The third environment was the largest in the exhibition and was situated in the heart of the space.  This environment looked at chalk and as such it was a white space.  In the original, the light was softer, with light shadows cast.

One of the walls had had wet plaster placed and then Pizzani had used various things to make imprints in the plaster, including her body.  Chalk is formed from the bodies of marine animals that fall to the seafloor.  Many of the creatures are tiny but there are often other larger animals too, and these remain as fossils.  Chalk is layered though and sometimes tracks are left that are preserved by the further addition of sediments.  This wall is one layer in the chalk, echoes of the movements of many things, organic and inorganic.

Pizzani introduces some very feminine forms with seed pods, shells and the like.  Some are in clay, others more organic.  Some include fabric elements.  

Interspersed are more chalky pieces with pieces of jute rope.  The jute rope is something related to the sea and the British empire.  The chalk cliffs of Britain have become an emblem of fortress Britain from the World Wars but also a symbol of resistance to immigration.  Chalk is a fragile, soft, accumulation of many things though, it isn't strong, it does not exclude.  It was formed before political barriers.

This environment was the one that seemed to remain most faithful to the original vision and as such, it was the most successful in sharing that vision.  And yet, I preferred the first environment with the amber, because the I found the individual pieces more intriguing.  

The remaining space included a few additional pieces and some items on loan from the box, which were a Coco de Mer nut and some mammoth teeth.  I would have preferred that there had been a television with the films included in the original exhibition on display.  I am sure there was a rationale for not including the films.

I learnt a lot from this exhibition.  I learnt that I like Lucia Pizzani's work.  I appreciate her vision and would like to see more.  She has interesting viewpoints that she presents in different ways.  I would like to see more of her work.  I learnt that when an exhibition goes on tour, it does not mean you will see exactly the same version of the exhibition and some versions may be more or less successful.  Some venues have more space, or the ability to change their layout.  The arts are often underfunded and so sometimes, it is just enough to see the art and welcome the opportunity to have a glimpse through the door of an artists vision.  The opportunity to see world class art is a blessing.

I also learnt, that I feel discrepancies and they are distracting until I understand them.  Sometimes art provokes and it is useful to understand when decisions are an integral part of the vision, and when they are not.  That's just how my brain works.