Gina Hack is a contemporary artist who explores the ideas of invasion of a safe space and the complex relationships between humans and the natural world. Humans are a part of the natural world, however, they still fear some of its aspects and try to protect themselves. Hack also aims to juxtapose this idea by visualizing the reaction of children. Children lack some of the conditioned knowledge to fear the natural world and remain somewhat oblivious. In this way, Hack wants to question the nature of their nuanced relationship with the natural world. Throughout her portfolio, the relationship between humans and the natural world begins with humans feeling threatened or unsafe. This transforms into a more oblivious reaction from children and shows children being in harmony with nature. Recurring images of natural disasters and the motif of children and viruses are represented through acrylic paint, chalk pastels, watercolors, and sculpture.

Result #1

In a tableau of her most recent work, Day-in-the-Country, 1994, is a picture of two white hands. They are holding a piece of red cloth, which extends from the top of the picture to the bottom. The hands are not of different sizes, but are united only by their power to keep the color alive. In this way, Hack further challenges the concept of the novel. Her decision to let the imagery speak for itself, revealing itself to be a mask as much as a means of communicating with us.In the end, Hack does not paint and manipulate her materials to create a figure or object, nor does she analyze her position as a camera-viewer. Instead, she is a photographer whose pictures are that of the present. They show us, on the verge of misunderstanding one another, the contradiction between our fears and desires.

Result #2

The collaboration between the wall and the watercolor (all works Untitled, 2006) represents the potential for humans and animals to interact, and ultimately to cooperate, in a new way.The exhibition also included a number of books on the theme of alien experience, which combine texts on indigenous cultures with images of alien landscapes and landscapes. The first volume in the series, the voyage of a red frog, is the one Hack used to illustrate this idea of invasion, of a flight into a strange territory. Here, the artist presented a collection of the pages of an encyclopedia that cover the question, What does it mean when I call you a frog? Hack proposes that the question presupposes a border between life and death; the metaphor of a frog, alive and dead, suggests an unstable zone between the two. Hack thus showed that it is necessary to take into account the concept of invasion and other ideas of the border between life and death.Hacks new drawings are thus a further step in the development of her work. Although they were shown in the gallery with some of her earlier works, here they seem to have been completely integrated into the exhibition, since they were the only drawings in the exhibition. The video, The Blue of the Butterfly, 2006, showing a red butterfly embracing a caterpillar, is an action that signifies the incipient power of interaction between the two species.

Result #3

The simultaneous images of humans and children of the earth, in particular, foreground the conflict and destruction between the two, the juxtaposition of an unknown and familiar world. However, here the contrast between a natural and an alien world is replaced by one between people and nature that remains strangely foreign to one another, as one remembers a past moment and realizes how alien the world seems.In one of her paintings, a child walks past a big, bright, and yellow butterfly, hoping to catch a butterfly. In another work, a baby gets into a butterfly mask, a symbol of invasiveness. Here, the butterfly is posed as a face, symbolizing the infantile nature of both species. Hack seems to be referencing the importance of instinct in determining our interactions with the world. Here, she shows us that animals are intelligent beings, capable of controlling their environments, and that it is not necessary to learn how to control them. This realization shows us that we are also intelligent beings and that our experience of the world is not innate to us, but can be learned and unlearned by the earth.

Result #4

And then there are images that relate directly to the communication of a child. Here, a bowl is an example of the barrier between the child and the other world that exists between the two; between the two, the child is a hollow vessel. And in an untitled piece, a child–sized mirror is placed between the child and the world he or she inhabits. While one can imagine the mirror that reflects the world in order to reveal the self to the other world, this mirror is turned inside out, hence, it is no longer the manifestation of an inner world, but rather a reflection of the world that resides outside.By now, the language that Hack uses is somewhat clichéd, but it has at least another aspect. In fact, it deals with a situation that is not new, that is not much talked about: the violence that occurs in schools. In fact, Hack confronts us with the complicated relationship between language and reality, between language and ignorance. However, in her work, the relationship between reality and language becomes more complicated: the powerlessness of both, and the need for intervention.

Result #5

Yet, although the primary concerns of these works are personal ones, they also provide a level of awareness that is personal and palpable.