In her 3-channel video installation Erdemojies – Forscher*innen der Mischung, Steinert brings in reinforcements: The performers and fellow artists Monika Michalko, Nschotschi Haslinger, Cora Saller, Katharina Duve, Hanna Mattes, Helena Ratka, Sophie Labrey and Helena Wittmann (camera) appear as naturalists, healers and superheroes who, in an experimental and playful approach, accompanied by darkly wavering electro sounds and drums, summon nature and elemental forces with the common aim of setting healthy structures in motion for all living beings.

Their performative gestures remind of ceremonial rites; with their fine branches, roots and hairs, the masks that Steinert has formed from organic material and are on view as relics in the exhibition, are reminiscent of sensual antennas. As terrestrial beings of fable and otherworldly creatures of art, the artists appear both staged as a tableau vivant and as active individual performers – yet always as part of a collective entity in which all is interconnected, inextricably interwoven, influencing each other and completely dissolving hierarchies between nature, humans, arts and culture.

In this present age, in which nature has become a plantation that can be formalized and scaled, and the plant world has been pushed to the margins of our perception as an insignificant splash of colour, Steinert brings nature forcefully back into focus. 

(Text excerpt by Miriam Schwarz)