Gudrun Filipska from the Arts Territory Exchange in conversation with Veronica Sekules the founder of ‘Groundwork‘ the First Gallery in the UK to be dedicated to Art and the enviroment. The conversation covers issues surrounding arts and ecology, artists and travel, fracking, global warming and discusses the last exhibition held at Groundwork ‘Fire and Ice’ by Jessica Rayner and Gina Glover as well as advertising the start date for the next exhibition Trash Art by Jan Eric Visser opening on the 9th of March.

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symbol of the endurance of nature, its structures surviving and adapting to change and it holds out hope, not least that an artist can be the one to remind us of its modest powers.

The Great Ouse River Drawing – By Richard Long, July 2016. Created specially for Groundwork. Image Veronica Sekules

GF Your recent exhibition ‘Fire and Ice’ by Gina Glover and Jessica Rayner touched on so many issues, from energy use and climate change to post industrial futures and economies of human confict. I was particularly struck by the theme of ruin and degradation. Ideas of ruin, which have long been explored in environmental art are touched on here in a literal sense by the melting of ice and the destructiveness of fre but also in a more complicated way in ‘Poisoned waters run deep’ Glover’s black and white series of photographs documenting fracking sites in the US – on frst look the images echo Bernd and Hilla Becher’s industrial photographs (1966-1999) they have a similar formalist style and it almost takes a second look to realise the series is contemporary.The aesthetic of the photographs speak through a similar nostalgia to that evoked by the Becher’s images of post industrial monuments but their positioning as new emblems of industrial intervention mean they act both as markers for future ruin and degeneration as well as cleverly harking back to ‘ruin’ as nostalgic site of mourning…do you have any thoughts on these ideas?

VS Yes, this is very interesting indeed and the more one thinks about it and views the images, the more complex the issues become. I have had the privilege of talking quite a lot to the artists, and

then seeing the images every day for several months, and engaging in numerous conversations, some of them with people who have been very thoughtful and knowledgeable about the issues they tackle. Gina Glover’s Poisoned Water Runs Deep images were generally reckoned to be powerful, hard hitting. In fact they were printed in black and white, with heightened negative in the background, but there is one of the original colour prints reproduced in her book ‘The Metabolic Landscape’ which shows how extensively she manipulated the image subsequently to give it a doom-laden edge. So, in monochrome, it has become superfcially more like a Bernt and Hilla Becher than before, though, while I agree theirs suggest ideas of post industrial ruin and a nostalgia for a lost economy, I think that Gina’s images aim to portray the machinery as an active agent of destruction rather than ruin. There is something of the science fction about her tanks and ladders and rocket-like projections, and I fnd them a little frightening. On the other hand, equally manipulated digitally to enhance their soft colours and mists, her melting ice pictures are simply beautiful, one of them, someone said they could just stand in front of endlessly, as it took their breath away. That was their strange power – we ought to be disturbed because of the loss they represent, yet their beauty induces a sense of guilt.

Image from Gina Glover’s Poisoned Water Runs Deep photographic series. Groundwork 2017.

Jessica Rayner’s work has quite a diferent emphasis I think, on renewal, innovation, resourcefulness. The fre integral to her work ‘Conversion’, never appears as destructive. The bale of biofuel at its centre, lives on through the work as the fre roars around it and is then absorbed back into it in an endless loop. So the fre is in efect the force which enables transformation from one medium into another, but we never see that happening, as the bale of straw-fuel never disappears. So, it is an illusion. The work doesn’t answer the question as to whether or not this is a good idea but it raises many questions, and it is an image, once again, that stuck in people’s minds very powerfully. Others of Jessica’s works tackled similar issues of apparent renewal. The ice block which I showed opposite ‘Conversion’ is called ‘Nothing is Destroyed’ and is chipped away to shards and then reappears as a block, endlessly repeating its life-death cycle. So it is not for me a cycle which is about mourning, but it expresses hope that we are not actually witnessing complete loss, but change, and that in order to understand the forces of change, we need to rethink our prejudices. That for me is a very strong message about climate change.

GF…I was also very interested in the varied locations of the works in the Fire and Ice show (Iceland, the US, Greenland…) and how important ideas of travel and journeying have been historically in work which considers the environment, whether as a narrative device as in Patrick Keiller’s ‘Robinson in Space’ or as a performative and explorative tool as in the work of many ‘land artists’ and contemporary ‘walking artists’ such as Francis Alys, Hamish Fulton and members of WAN (the Walking Arts Network). As an aside, Im also wondering how the economies of travel which are necessary to further research work in the humanities and sciences are both aided by narratives of globalisation and its ease of travel and at the same time troubled by air travels impact on climate change for example and how these tensions and contradictions can be managed…perhaps opening up new opportunities for engagement that can be both local and far reaching such as Chris Kraus’s propositions for radical localism1… I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the political implications of artists ‘travel’ and how these ideas may have changed post ‘Land art’?

VS The whole question of travel in the art world is fraught with contradictions. It was a problem for Cape Farewell, who were criticised for sending artists on expeditions to the Arctic, and that being in contrast with the idea of a low carbon economy necessary for mitigating some of the impacts of climate change. Yet, the role of the artist as ‘witness’ is a crucial and long-standing one. We need the authenticity and independence of vision that an artist can contribute, and not least, the willingness to be critical and both to take risks and portray them. For artists too of course, travel is an important professional development thing and means for inspiration. Gina and Jessica cemented their relationship as artists through their travels to Iceland. For Hilary Mayo, it enabled a complete change of direction, giving her work new force and imagery.

Land Art is also complex – depending on whether we are talking about the American or the British versions, which are deeply contradictory, the former being very much about dramatic reshaping of landscape and the latter about minimal and very personal intervention. Ditto, the whole notion of walking art, which can be equally about risk, about modernisim, history, location – depending on who you are talking about. I think that your Arts Territory Exchange, enabling virtual and locally based collaborations and initiatives, is one of the ways forward. There is a big localism movement developing, which I also have written about – and at best this can be about regeneration and understanding indigenous knowledge as well as valuing the minutiae of place.2

GF I was struck by a quote I read recently by Nancy Holt about her ‘Sun Tunnels’ (1977) in rural Utah, that the landscape ‘…could speak of walking on earth that has surely never been walked upon before,(evoking) a sense of being on this planet, rotating in space, in universal time’3. I was considering how our concept of time in ‘environmental art’ may have changed over the past 50 years, the idea of a universal time or being suspended in space in this way seems an impossibility now – due largely to the fact that environmental issues are far more pressing and urgent – the feeling that we are existing on a kind of borrowed time now the climate change tipping point4 has been passed and even if co2 ommisions were reduced completely, the damage already done is no longer reversible…I suppose I am wondering what these knowledges mean for contemporary arts practice and activism in general, especially in an age when the president of the United States denies climate change in favour of industry and economic development. So the idea of ‘universal’ time that Holt talks about has been perhaps been replaced by some kind of anxious and increasingly frenetic temporal landscape, and i’m interested in what this may mean for the making work and the need as talked about by artists such as Marina Abramovic to be inside of time and to suspend time somehow in order to carve out a space in which to make art…?

VS Regarding the notion about time, it depends very much on who you are looking at. For many artists now, the idea of deep time is more relevant than ever – look for example at the great interest

being shown in geology and eg. Doggerland – the prehistoric environment beneath the North Sea, or at the impact of development of the Anthropocene. Mind you, both these ideas speak of landscape that has very much been trodden – and that is the really big diference from Nancy Holt’s era. And I think that the Climate change and the feelings of human responsibility for it have very much led to and accelerated interest in these ideas about traces from former civilisations and the impact on the present – and how we read the past. I think that Marina Abramovic’s concerns come from a diferent place – being very sensitive to the autonomy of art, and the idea of the artist as author deeply within a protected practice, with a right to dip in and out of time at will. She may or may not share concerns about climate change, but I don’t see that as being primary for her, as much as the idea of Vanitas – focussing on life and death and on the limits of human life and experience.

GF …also in terms of audience engagement and ideas around ‘looking’, slowness is equally as important as an urgency in consumption, how as as curator do you balance the delivery of a message or the raising of awareness around environmental issues with the importance of the suspended time necessary for spectator engaging with the work? And how important is the delivery of a message to your remit as a gallery?

VS I love the whole idea of ‘slow’ – as in slow food, slow art – and I think it can also be applied to slow looking. But there is also an urgency in terms of the environment. They are not necessarily contradictory ideas though. In order to understand the environment and the issues we face in our relationships with it, we need to focus on its minutiae. In both cases, being slow often involves careful looking and engaging in conversation. I very much regard the gallery as a place for both and try to engage people in conversation, though of course silent contemplation is important too. Roger Ackling used to tell a wonderful story about the best tutorial he ever held at Chelsea with two artists, was a completely silent communion in front of their work. He had told them only to talk when they were ready and they saw no need. Silence can be a bit of an elite thing though – like minimal art – very much for those who already understand things deeply.

As for the environment and how I relate to it via the gallery, it is a question of watching listening and being attentive to what artists are doing and using the work of theirs that I show as a springboard for campaigning about issues it raises. That happens through conversations, discussions, colloquia, conferences, workshops. These have to work across disciplines and I am a great advocate for that, as a means to engage people beyond the confnes of the contemporary art world. I see the gallery as a place that bridges between specialists and non-specialists, and people of diferent specialisms. It is, and ought to be a social space, welcoming of diferent points of view. My space is intentionally hybrid – using the methods of a public gallery with the practices of a commercial one, i.e. being a shop, as it matters to me ethically to engage in the economy. Being on the high street is as important as being on the river. I am bringing international and global artistic and environmental concerns there, and I hope, a greater interest in how art can engage with environmental politics as well as with people’s daily lives.

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Groundwork’s next exhibition Trash Art opens on the 9th of March and Veronika Sekules new book ‘Cultures of the Countryside, Art | Museum | Heritage | Environment ‘ is available now published by Routledge.

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1Chris Krauss, 2012, Kelly Lake Store & Other Stories, Portland, Companion Editions.
2Veronica Sekules, 2018, Cultures of the Countryside, Art | Museum | Heritage | Environment, London and New York, Routledge.
3 Lucy Lippard, 1983, ‘Overlay – Contemporary Art and the Art of Pre-history’. NewYork.pantheon. page 106.
4 A few years ago, 400 parts per million for carbon dioxide was widely cited as the tipping point for climate change. Whether it’s a tipping point or a milestone, we have decisively passed it and CO2 levels appear certain to continue rising. Forbes www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2017/03/16/. Article written by Earl J. Ritchie.

 

The European Investment Bank (EIB) Institute is pleased to announce the 2018 edition of its Artists Development Programme (ADP), looking for ONE visual artist (born after 1 January, 1983) from an EU Member State to work on the theme of “Disruption: The Imprint of Man”.

The ADP offers emerging European visual artists a 5-6 week-long residency in Luxembourg, enabling them to develop their practice and create a new (body of) work(s), boosted by the mentorship of a high-profile established artist. In 2018, the recipients will each be mentored by acclaimed British artist Callum Innes.

ADP 2017 laureates with Callum Innes

Eligibility
•Being born after 1 January, 1983
•EU nationality
•Fluency in English

Budget and Duration
The EIB Institute will cover the artist’s travel costs to and from Luxembourg (residency), and to and from Callum Innes’s studio (before the start of the residency). The artist will receive a stipend (EUR 100 per day to cover living costs and production) and will be provided with a living/working space. Upon starting the residency the artist will be given an additional production budget of EUR 500 and at the end of the residency will receive a success fee of EUR 1 000, provided he/she has produced an artwork. The residency in Luxembourg will take place in May/June 2018.
Upon completion of the residency, the EIB may acquire the artwork(s) produced on-site from the artist.

Application Procedure
Requirements
– CV (in English)
– Scanned copy of the passport or identity card of the applicant evidencing nationality of one of the 28 Member States
– A letter of motivation, in English, with ideas to be explored during the residency, in line with the proposed theme (maximum 500 words)
– Portfolio of visual documentation of works, maximum 8 images, best representing the art of the applicant (in PDF format, A4 pages)
– Names and contact details of two professional referees familiar with the art of the applicant
– A brief reference in the body of the email to how the applicant found out about the programme

Selection Procedure
A jury – consisting of Callum Innes (the mentor), external art advisers and members of the EIB Arts Committee – will select the candidate based on the artistic quality of his/her work, his/her motivation, the potential to make the most of the opportunity offered by the residency and the relevance of the applicant’s practice to the cultural context of the EIB Institute.

The selected candidate will be informed of the jury’s decision via email in February 2018.

Application deadline: Midnight (GMT+1), 3 January, 2018.
Any application failing to comply with the set requirements will be automatically disqualified.

Applications should be sent electronically to Ms Delphine Munro (arts@eib.org)

Additional information:

https://institute.eib.org/2017/11/call-for-application-for-the-artists-development-programme-2018-disruption-the-imprint-of-man/

MASLEN & MEHRA in collaboration with street artists, Shuby and Delete
1 September – EXTENDED until 26th November

Hastings Museum & Art Gallery
John’s Place, Hastings TN34

Maslen & Mehra consider their more recent work to be ‘micro’. By that, they mean they are honing in on very specific political and environmental dilemmas. This requires a completely different methodology to previous work in order to explore detailed narratives. The sculptures in their current series have been based on ceramic plates researched in museums around the world. These include the Victoria & Albert and British Museums, London; Hastings Museum, UK; Mares Museum, Barcelona; the Metropolitan Museum, New York; the Archaeological Museum and the Turkish and Islamic Art Museum, Istanbul; the Asian Museum of Civilization in Singapore and the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza, Italy. Maslen & Mehra fashion the sculptures from humble materials: wire and papier-mâché, completed with a decoupage technique of small tiles of archival prints. The narrative of each original plate is altered to highlight a variety of ideas tied to three themes: Cash, Clash and Climate.

The Cash series draws attention to bank bailouts; Doughnut Economics; credit culture; housing bubbles; tampon tax; quantitative easing; war as big business; the commodification of food staples; and the almost religious status that money has reached in our times. The Clash series embodies social unrest from London to Athens; Article 475; the refugee crisis; Grenfell; Greece and the Eurozone; social media to organise protests; fracking; gun control vs gun rights; and the Dakota Access Pipeline.  Lastly, the Climate series highlights environmental topics such as global coral bleaching events; chronic pollution as a heavy cost for economic power in China; melting ice caps; the opposing views of climate change; El Niño; Natural Capital; and the legacy of radiation from Japan’s nuclear disaster in Fukushima. The artists have made bespoke stands for the sculptures and invited local street artists, Shuby and Delete, to add to their surfaces, responding to each theme. This exhibition at the Hastings Museum draws together pieces from the three collections for the first time, representing years of work.

The sculptures individually pose questions about political, social and economic structures but together they ask how they, in turn, relate to social unrest and environmental issues. Some themes may be familiar to the viewer such as the piece, Polarized, which confronts us with opposing slogans: ‘Global warming is a cruel hoax’ and ‘Climate can’t wait’. Others are less obvious, such as the piece Article 475 which encourages the viewer to look further if they don’t understand the reference. Faith in Fiat questions the shift from commodity money to a fiat system which is effectively a promise. Is it sustainable to have such blind faith? The largest piece in the collection, Natural Capital references a system by which natural assets (water, geology, biodiversity, soil, air) and ecosystem services (pollination by insects, recreation, natural flood defences etc.) are given a financial value. Could this alternate economic system be the key? Maslen & Mehra have created the framework Cash, Clash and Climate in order to ponder questions about the complexities of living today and they invite viewers to follow their train of thought.

Hasting Museum and Art Gallery has an extensive ceramics collection. This exhibition will be in the newly refurbished Ceramics Gallery which showcases pottery production over the past 5000 years.

Hastings Museum and Art Gallery
Telephone: 01424 451052
Or you can contact us via Twitter or Facebook
https://twitter.com/hastings_museum
https://www.facebook.com/HBC-Hastings-Museum-Art-Gallery-218155741717952/

Admission is free. We are open all year:
April – October: Tuesday - Saturday 10am – 5pm, Sunday 12noon – 5pm. Last admission 4.30pm
November – March: Tuesday - Saturday 10am – 4pm, Sunday 12noon – 4pm. Last admission 3.30pm
The Museum has full wheelchair access throughout and disabled toilet facilities.
Free parking available outside Museum, including 1 disabled parking bay.

MASLEN & MEHRA Biography

Tim Maslen (b. 1968, Australia) studied Fine Art at Curtin University, Perth and completed an MA at Goldsmiths University, London in 1997. Jennifer Mehra (b. 1970, London) studied Fine Art at City Art Institute, Sydney and the National Arts School, Australia. Mehra was a founder of VOID, an East London artists’ – run space, which staged dozens of exhibitions for four years from 1997 – 2000.

Maslen & Mehra have worked collaboratively since 2000. They are recipients of a grant award from the Arts Council of England for their ongoing work Cash, Clash & Climate (2015 – 2017). Work from this series was included in an exhibition curated by Jenni Lomax, Melanie Manchot and Brian Cass at the Towner Contemporary (July 2016). They exhibited work from this series in the exhibition The Fall Of The Rebel Angels in Venice in 2015.

In 2014, they staged a solo exhibition at Lucy Bell Gallery for the Hastings Photo Festival. They were selected by Paul Noble for Creekside, London 2013, and were included in LUMINOUSFLUX at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery as part of the Perth International Arts Festival. In 2011, they were shortlisted for the Latitude Contemporary Art Prize alongside Graham Dolphin, Delaine Le Bas, Andy Harper and Alice Anderson.

The work of Maslen & Mehra can be found in collections such as Tattinger Switzerland, Galila Collection Brussels, Art EsCollecion Madrid, numerous international private collections and the Altered Landscape Collection, Nevada Museum of Art. Maslen & Mehra are featured in the stunning accompanying book titled The Altered Landscape published by Rizzoli.

Solo exhibitions have been staged in New York, London, Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Dubai, Istanbul, Toronto, Perth, Sydney and Berlin. In 2011 there was a solo presentation of their work for the Scotiabank CONTACT International Festival, Toronto. A monograph, Mirrored – Maslen & Mehra was published by Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg in 2008 with texts by Hamburger Bahnhof Museum Curator, Eugen Blume and art historian, Edward Lucie-Smith. Earlier projects include an installation at the Frissiras Museum, Athens during the Olympics (2004), a sculpture installation exhibited at Artspace, Sydney (2002), and a solo project at Dilston Grove, London achieved with awards from the Henry Moore Foundation and London Arts (2001).

Fermynwoods Contemporary Art launches Art Work Placement –
Art and Creativity driving innovation and change in Northamptonshire businesses

Northamptonshire organisation Fermynwoods Contemporary Art has launched Art Work Placement, a pioneering initiative in collaboration with a group of key businesses in the County. For the first time, 5 professional artists will be placed in 5 of Northamptonshire’s key businesses to help employees develop creative solutions to today’s business challenges. Funded by Arts Council England, Art Work Placement is an innovative, new idea involving artists working with the businesses to explore how integrating art into daily working life can not only enrich the workplace, but create change.

During each Art Work Placement residency the artists will be meeting staff and making art work and, as a result, understand how creativity makes a difference in finding new ways of thinking about the workplace and company culture. The programme is inspired by Fermynwoods’ aim to ensure that art infiltrates every day life and by the belief, shared by their business partners, that the arts and culture an essential part of making Northamptonshire a great place to live, work, play and learn.

The artists are all Associates Artists with Fermynwoods and the four residencies confirmed to date are:

• Virginie Litzler with Cosworth at both their Northampton and Cambridge locations
  www.cosworth.com
• Dr Simon Woolham with St Andrews Healthcare, Northampton www.stah.org
•  Sophie Herxheimer with East Northants Council Economic Development,
  Thrapston www.east-northamptonshire.gov.uk
• Tim Simmons with Delta Motorsport, Silverstone www.delta-motorsport.com
• Rebecca Lee’s residency will be announced in October.

Art Work Placement is being delivered by Fermynwoods with Culture Consultant, Morag Ballantyne, and Organisational Psychologist, Kirstin Irving.

Director of Fermynwoods Contemporary Art, Yasmin Canvin, said, “We are delighted to have had such a positive and enthusiastic reaction to Art Work Placement from businesses across the County. Artists are specialists in helping us to see the world differently and looking between the lines, so the expectation is that artists working in these organisation can help unlock further innovation and creativity”.

Nick Greenway, Director of Marketing for the iconic Northamptonshire motorsport and engineering company, Cosworth, added: “As a business we know that in order to succeed we need imagination, innovation and creativity, but we also need to retain the very best talent, that’s a source of business advantage – and, of course, we want our staff to be happy and motivated. I’m excited at seeing how having Virginie working with us challenges us to capture what we’re about and to see it more clearly”.

Fermynwoods and the participating businesses expect to see a range of benefits to communication and productivity as well as contributing to quality of life at work and the wellbeing of staff.

About Fermynwoods Contemporary Art:

Fermynwoods Contemporary Art commissions innovative and meaningful ways for
visual artists to engage with audiences, in public spaces across Northamptonshire and
online. Recent projects have included: The Twelfth Player, a collaboration
with Northampton Town Football Club and Royal&amp;Dernagte, which blended film and live
performance to take audiences on an immersive tour of Sixfields Stadium; and Space
Programme, when young people worked with artists to launch thermochromatic
sculptures 20,000km into space and document the journey.
www.fermynwoods.org