The Threshold of Impermanence I
The Threshold of Impermanence
Kunstmuseum
Appenzell, Switzerland
Photos Credit: Conradin Frei
The Threshold of Impermanence by Caline Aoun spans the Kunstmuseum and the Kunsthalle Appenzell and explores the conditions under which natural and artificial systems emerge, operate, and transform. Aoun renders invisible processes perceptible and engages with key questions of our present: ecological fragility, technological pervasiveness, and the ways in which we engage with time and resources. The exhibition does not present finished works, but rather process-based states that shift over time and in response to space, climate, and interaction.
Impermanence is not framed as loss, but as a condition of transformation. The exhibition does not present autonomous objects, but configurations in which materials accumulate, shift, dissolve, or transition into other states. The spaces become experimental arrangements in which materials interact and actively shape their environment.
Across both venues, a trajectory unfolds from the elemental to the cultural, from physical processes to image and information systems. At the Kunstmuseum, the focus is on water, condensation, light and heat; at the Kunsthalle, the emphasis shifts to printing ink, circulation, image production and data. Together, the works trace a present in which nature, technology and perception are inextricably intertwined. What remains is not the stable artwork, but the trace: of time, of energy, of circulation.
