Lucía Pizzani: Faunal Succession

Faunal Succession is the first institutional UK exhibition by Lucía Pizzani, a Venezuelan artist based in London. First presented at Focal Point Gallery, the show features new installations created in collaboration with community groups and schools, and with artists Cecilia Bonilla and Jaime Gili.

Pizzani reimagines the British coast through a ‘deep time’ lens, where earth’s history is considered on an immense timescale spanning billions of years. She contrasts the gradual formation of Britain’s coastal geology with rapidly evolving contemporary questions of climate change, migration and social transformation.

In Faunal Succession, Pizzani presents three environments that merge installation, sculpture, painting and sound, including work created through community participation. Combining scientific and poetic interpretations of the landscape, each of these environments reference the geological strata of coastal Britain, its fossils, and its living organisms. The exhibition title refers to the principle of ‘faunal succession’: the observation of chronological patterns in fossils that allow geologists to accurately date sedimentary rock layers. For Pizzani, this physical manifestation of ‘deep time’ becomes a framework for rethinking contemporary human and ecological crises, revealing borders and national identities as constructed and recent concepts.

This exhibition is in partnership with Focal Point Gallery and is generously supported by the Lucía Pizzani Exhibition Circle: Victoria and David Law (lead supporter), Maria Sukkar (lead supporter), ERA FOUNDATION, Launch Pad, Aude Fourcade, Leslie Ramos and Thomas Forwood, Flavia Nespatti, Shelley Tichborne, Erica Wax, Sophia Paulina Wilhelmsen and those who wish to remain anonymous.

Faunal Succession will be opening at KARST on Thursday 11 June (6 – 8pm). There will be an exhibition walk-through with the artist on 12 June (1 – 2pm) and Curator’s Tours with our Head of Programme, Ben Borthwick on 26 June and 24 July (1 – 2pm). The show will be on view at Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea from 25 Mar – 30 May and will travel on to Mostyn, Llandudno in spring 2027.