Natura fugit.
Jesus Mari Lazkano
Opening: March 17, 2026
Space: Room 0
Commissioners: Valentín Vallhonrat and Ignacio Miguéliz
Lazkano reflects on climate change caused by humans by reproducing the same place at different periods and moments in history.
The natural environment in which we live is marked by climate change, largely caused by human activity, which we are currently attempting to reverse to some extent. However, despite scientific evidence, part of society remains reluctant to accept this change. It is within this context that Natura Fugit is situated, a project created by Jesus Mari Lazkano (Bergara, 1960) as part of Museo Universidad de Navarra Tender puentes artist residency program. According to the artist, art can serve as a catalyst for raising awareness, as its ability to evoke emotion is a perfect “bridge” for sparking the necessary debate and changing our behavior—not through propaganda, but through sensitivity and reflection.
In this project, Lazkano explores the process of transformation currently affecting the landscape and nature, focusing in this case on the Mer de Glace glacier in Chamonix, in the Alps. In his work, he captures the changes in light, atmosphere, weather, and space that the glacier undergoes and blends them with period images—such as paintings, postcards, old photographs, and various iconographic materials—incorporating a range of “perspectives” that result in a film and a series of pastel drawings. As he himself points out, this line of work is based on William Kentridge, as the best-known reference, and his processes of drawing over drawing to “film” in stop motion. To this end, Lazkano carries out a similar process in which he has used nearly 3,000 drawings that are destroyed and reconstructed in the cinematic process, and which remain hidden beneath a final layer formed by the 122 definitive drawings. The film offers a chronological journey through the landscape’s transformation, from the last Quaternary glaciation to the near future with the total disappearance of ice, the occupation, urbanization, and destruction of the environment, its extinction, and subsequent natural collapse—from which a “supernature” ultimately emerges, occupying a new place in the world.
For this project, Lazkano draws on an image from the MUN collection, *Mer de Glace* (1875) by S. Thompson, which depicts the view of the Grandes Jorasses from the Montenvers Refuge in Chamonix. Lazkano linked this photograph to the painting High Mountain Region (1824) by Caspar David Friedrich (1744–1840), one of his primary influences, which was painted at the same location.
RELATED ACTIVITIES
Wednesday, March 17, 7:00 p.m.
Date
March 17, 2026