It has been refreshing to be able to work outside applying papier maché to steel bowls before painting and covering them with earth.
This new incarnation of submīrārī has images of everyday locations called paradise floating in water. We must make paradise out of what we have, to dream of an ideal will not help us tackle the very real problems of climate change.
In submīrārī(earthbound) reflections of a no longer certain world hover in pools revealing glimpses of familiar terrains fluctuating on the cusp of disappearance. The ethereal images float or submerge depending on the temperature of the water which refracts light across the surface prompting the viewer to shift perspective until clarity is gained.
Donna Haraway, drawing from Latour, proposes the ‘Earthbound’ as those humans who are ready to rethink and create new narratives with Gaia at the centre, who recognise the entanglement of society and nature and aim to pursue a ‘nonarrogant collaboration with all those in the muddle’. The shift in perspective embraced by the ‘Earthbound’ embodies a grief shared with other species at loss of habitat and disappearing landscapes. It is not a nostalgia for paradise lost but a reappraisal of what paradise could be. The scenes depicted in this work, sourced from prosaic locations named Paradise, aim towards deconstructing a romanticised ideology and bringing us down to earth.
Cosmic Perspectives curated by Lumen at Ugly Duck was a thoughtful examination of human centric relationships to the earth.
As part of Cosmic Perspectives weekend Marek Kukula, Public Astronomer at Royal Museums Greenwich, gave an informative talk with amazing images on The Intimate Universe
‘Our familiar surroundings are full of astronomical connections: everything from the water in your taps, your holiday suntan to the vagaries of the British weather all have their origins far out in space. Even our own bodies are made from material forged in the hearts of long-dead stars.’ Marek Kukula explains that to properly understand our living planet we need to explore the wider universe of which it is an integral part.
He opened his talk with the view that despite huge technological leaps occurring every decade bringing us new perspectives we still know so little about our universe but hoped this exciting adventure into the unknown would continue.
It was a question that Laboratory of Dark Matters touched upon later that day at Guest Projects. This was part of the 10 year anniversary celebrations of Yinka Shonibare’s generous project that gives artists free space to experiment and develop work.
Looking at text extracts from Joyful Cruelty: Towards a Philosophy of the Real by Clément Rosset, In the Dark by Alexander B. Fry and How To Know The Starry Heavens by Edward Irving we struggled with subtleties of reality and perception and tried to answer such questions as:
Are there endless possibilities in science?
If dark matter is never more than a concept does that make it any less valid?
I have also been lucky to spend a wonderful weekend in Valencia enjoying sculpted buildings, a riverbed turned 12km park, the first cathedral to commerce and lots of relics including the holy grail itself.
dark and even darker matters
Jacinta Gil Piojo de la cabra 1968
Some great geometrical investigations and cosmic meanderings at The Birth of Abstraction at The Institut Valencià d’Art Modern.
Gerhard Richter 9 Objects 1969
Manolo Gil Scrapbook of regular figures III (Decomposition of the pentagon and hexagon) 1957
José María Yturralde Impossible Figure (Squares Series) 1974
Manuel Rivera Composition 1956
Isabel Oliver De la serie La mercantillizacion del arte 1975
Manuel Millares Picture 97 1960
Robert Bartlett Richenburg Night Cascade 1961
Pierre Soulages 222 x 411 12 Nov 1984
During Marek Kukula’s talk one image in particular resonated. It was a picture taken at the edge of the earth’s atmosphere using a weather balloon. It shows the curve of the earth and the brilliant blue halo fading out to the blackness of space. Out here is where the violent collisions of cosmic rays hitting our ‘earthbound’ gases happens.
I really want to send up my own weather balloon into this realm of activity and have begun researching how this might be possible.
Susan Eyre 