Cultural Reforesting - voices of the ecosystem

Vigil is the outcome of an interspecies collaboration seeking to endorse ecocentric perspectives, which foreground the equity and interdependence between human and ecological bodies.

It is a statement of acknowledgement that, via storytelling, ritual mourning and allusion to myth, honours the individual subjectivity of the particular Black Poplar tree at Orleans House, while also lamenting the depletion of the species that is symptomatic of broader environmental collapse. The myth of Phaeton- in particular, his grieving sisters’ transformation into Black Poplar trees, and the scourging of Earth, undergirds Vigil, providing the conceptual link between mourning, environmental trauma and the Black Poplar. Narration occurs at a pace significantly slower than is typical of human communication, which both immerses the recipient within the longer span of ecological, ‘tree time’, and facilitates an ethic of giving due attention and time to an ‘other’ species. The piece is designed to lament, but also redress, the consequences of the environmental crisis. It also confronts the conditions that perpetuate ecological violence: apathy, disconnection and the anthropomorphic perspective, which situates nature beyond the sanctioned sphere of care. The listener is invited to slow-down, witness and reflect upon their relationship to, and place within, the planetary whole, in solidarity with the Black Poplar tree.

Vigil initially existed as a short film, which is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HdJpmE1ZoM. Further work by the artist, Eden Spence can be found at the Instagram handle @edenespence.

Eden Spence is a cross-disciplinary documentarian, writer and artist based between London and the New Forest. She is particularly interested in stories pertaining to ecology, mythic imaginations and sustainable futures. Her projects seek to foster a radical ethic of care that encompasses human and extra-human beings equally, while simultaneously unpicking the structures that sacrelizes certain bodies, while inflicting grievous violence against ‘others’. Eden works with words, photography and illustration- drawing inspiration from ancient myths and oral traditions, woven through with contemporary eco-critical discourse and innovations, to create works which invite the recipient to pause in the rapid stream of modern time, and consider their relationship to the all-expansive planetary whole. Eden is currently studying on LCC’s MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography, having graduated from the University of Exeter with a degree in English Literature (First Class)in 2020.

This is a recorded conversation between artist Nestor Pestana and Sámi film maker and commissioner Liisa Holmberg; designer and interdisciplinary researcher Dr Johanna; and transmedia artists Jatun Risba.

Nestor gathers artists, researchers and an indigenous thought leader for a unique and insightful discussion to explore how climate change is affecting communities and how better understanding and building empathy with other species might offer us new ways to tackle it.

In 1902, an Act of Parliament was passed to protect the natural environment that forms the view from Marble Hill in Richmond, U.K., the only act of its kind in England. More recently, similar actions have slowly taken place around the world, with the aim to protect rivers and forests, granting them with legal personhood. These are sparse and fragmented cases, but what if they were extended to include all, or at least most natural ecosystems? Can worldbuilding and storytelling help us envision such a world and inspire transformation? 

Based on such questions, this conversation aims to discuss the practical issues of how climate change is affecting communities, such as the indigenous Sámi people; and the poetics involved in understanding the human and non-human in a more equal level.  

Deeply rooted in indigenous traditions, we will gain insights on the cultural importance of storytelling through the lens of the Sámi people. Building on this, we will discuss ideas about interspecies entanglements, through storytelling devices encompassing language, performance and designed objects. 

Speaker Bios Liisa Holmberg 

Liisa Holmberg is originally from the Finnish side of the Saamiland. She is a film commissioner at the International Sámi Film Institute, in Norway, and has worked internationally with Indigenous film makers in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Sápmi and Russia, with the purpose to establish an Arctic Indigenous Film Fund (AIFF). She is also a filmmaker and has worked in the film industry as a producer, production manager and film consultant since 1994.  

In 2018, Liisa joined the European Film Academy and was also nominated Chair of the Council for the University of the Arctic. She has worked as a rector of the Sámi Education Institute in Inari, Finland, supporting Sámi languages, cultures and livelihoods. 

Dr Johanna

Dr Johanna is a designer and interdisciplinary researcher. She is a professor of design at Folkwang University of the Arts. Her inquiry-based work explores the intersections of design, art, science, technology, and futures. She holds a degree in Digital Media from the University of the Arts Berlin (UdK) and a MA and PhD from the Royal College of Art London. Her work has been published, awarded, and exhibited internationally, including at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the National Museum Stockholm, the Venice Biennale of Architecture, and Ars Electronica Center Linz. 

Jatun Risba 

Jatun Risba – ‘ki’ – is a transmedia artist, sower of kinship and parrhesiast (truth-seeker) exploring beyond human paradigms. Since 2015 Risbas has been developing the pioneering somatic practice ‘Interesse/Dance of Life’ which seeks to reveal liminal expressions of the thinking body to create opportunities to reveal, share, immunise and free oneself while acknowledging the divine comedy of life. A transdisciplinary practitioner, Risba regularly collaborates with visual artists, makers, humanists and scientists and has exhibited and performed in numerous venues including Bangkok Biennial 2020, Fabbrica del Vapore Milan, Kersnikova Institute and Škuc Gallery in Ljubljana, etc. Ki has given lectures/workshops widely and has published texts in various printed and online publications. 

Nestor Pestana 

Nestor Pestana is a Venezuelan-Portuguese educator, art director and digital designer, whilst developing a new media arts and research practice. Nestor engages in collaborations with scientists and technologists to promote knowledge exchange, critical thinking and lifelong learning. Projects are research based, focusing on the necessity for critical engagement with contemporary and emerging issues related to technology, ecology and politics. Nestor has exhibited internationally, in places such as the Design Museum, Somerset House, D-Lab Tokyo Gallery, Seoul National University, Venice Biennale and Porto Planetarium. His work has been acquired by the Welcome Trust and awarded by the Royal College of Art and YouFab Global Creative Awards.

Monica and May discuss their fascinating collaboration on Messages from a Post Human Earth.

“Not everything everywhere is for us.” Stanislaw Lem, The Invincible

‘Hello human person. In a moment you will be asked to face the future. A world without you. A world after you. The person with you will explore the past, and so you will have to lose each other. But not yet…’

MESSAGES TO A POST HUMAN EARTH is an interactive, multi-sensorial journey through the beautiful grounds of the Orleans House Gallery, where you and your partner will embark on an evocative audio journey featuring augmented reality (AR), to reimagine your relationship with the natural world.

The story explores the work of Monica Gagliano and an essay by science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem, which he wrote for the Human Interference Task Force in the 1980s. Lem’s essay was written in response to a request for ideas of what to do with nuclear waste and its incredibly long life span; he suggested encoding messages into the DNA of plants. Gagliano is well known for her research into plant intelligence and the behaviours that demonstrate memory by the Mimosa plant.

Designed for two people to experience together, you will be provided with a special device and props before being sent off to explore the natural world; a hearing, living thing, sensorially alert like you.

You and your partner’s short journeys are different but will work in synchronicity with the other. Like a symbolic choreography, both of your actions become a performance for the other.

Invisible to the naked eye, the audio narration and AR content comes to life to invite musing on the living environment and a future world in which humans will no longer be present.

Bryony Benge-Abbott was joined by Ian Wright and Ellie Mackay to discuss her residency at Orleans House Gallery on 15 September 2021.

Bryony Benge-Abbott is a British-Trinidadian artist, curator and producer working at intersection of art and science, with a particular focus on nature connection. Her practice spans street art to oil paintings, textile design to drawing, playing with pattern, scale and composition, and moving between symbolism, abstraction and expressionism in the search for immersive encounters with nature. She also brings a strong community engagement and participatory focus to her public realm based work. Alongside her artist practice, Bryony has 15 years experience of curating and producing social history and science exhibitions, most recently leading the inaugural public engagement strategy for exhibitions at the UK’s largest lab, The Francis Crick Institute. She has a BA Hons in Fine Art Painting from Bath Spa University and an MA in Museology with a Curatorial Fellowship at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.

Ellie Mackay is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and science communicator specialising in environmental storytelling, and using disruptive, positive messaging to change the narrative and encourage renewed thinking and action. Her work has explored everything from sustainable palm oil production to plastics, littering and the circular economy. She is particularly interested in our connection to natural systems and both the mental health and environmental health benefits of living and working more holistically with nature.

Ian is a sculptor, landscape architect and environmentalist. He attended the Royal College of Art where he claims to have ‘failed with distinction’ before moving to Ireland in 1974, where his longstanding interest in forestry led to the purchasing of 70 acres of land in Cork in 1997. There, he developed an environmentally and economically sustainable forest and established the Irish Natural Forestry Foundation, now The Green Economy Foundation, to demonstrate best practice. The Foundation successfully challenged the decision of the Irish forest service (through the European Union) to only grant aid for the planting of alien conifers. Ian’s campaigning continues to influence Irish forestry policy and its relationship with forestry companies and private landowners and to date, Ian estimates he has planted 2 million trees in Ireland.

Today Ian is based in the Caribbean where he is one of the co-founders of Corbin’s Local, a wildlife park on Tobago that has introduced a breed and release programme for the island’s endangered animals and is soon to be the site of a new Biodiversity Awareness Centre.

Artists Ackroyd & Harvey were joined by Zena Edwards, Sarah Edwards and Raffael Jovine to discuss the climate crisis and their residency at Orleans House Gallery on 8 July 2021. This conversation was hosted on Zoom.

“What if we could fashion a restoration plan that grew from multiple meanings of land?  Land as sustainer.  Land as identity.  Land as grocery store and pharmacy.  Land as connection to ancestors.  Land as moral obligation. Land as sacred.  Land as self.”  Robin Wall-Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 2013

Inspired by Robin Wall-Kimmerer’s exquisitely framed question, artists Ackroyd & Harvey will be in conversation with invited guests Sarah Edwards, Zena Edwards and Raffael Jovine to ask where do we begin?  Where and how do we plant seeds of renewal and whose voice and vision will be heard and shared in the process of restoring land and relationship to land?  Biocultural or reciprocal restoration is an emerging exemplar of a new holistic approach, rooted in indigenous legacy that reveals land as a community of more-than-human species to whom humans have a responsibility.  How may we draw on cultural imaginings to renew and revitalise and act on behalf of life to bring about transformation?