Something has been stirring in the wilderness for some time now, lurking on the peripheries of our collective vision. It has been growing and evolving in strength and form. Occasionally it leaps to the fore; Simon Starling wins the Turner Prize or a wooden elephant strolls through the streets of London. And these apparently disparate events can be drawn together under the banner of Arts and Ecology.
The scientific revolution was a great pinnacle of man’s achievements but its ultimate outcome is, for society, the segregation of thought and feeling. A schism between scientific rigour and artistic tenderness. There is now a growing concern in certain artistic circles to reconnect, to heal the divide that separates science from philosophy and art, and – through diverse media – to reinterpret our existence on this planet and invigorate it once more.
In this time of critical and irreversible change science seems to be inclining its head welcomingly towards the arts, if with a slightly bemused look on its face. In the wake of the year that finally put climate change on everyone’s lips, seems pertinent to throw Art & Ecology together in the mainstream.
The RSA recently held a conference on Arts & Ecology entitled ‘No way back’ and similarly themed conferences have cropped up in Canada, China and Dartington in Devon where the annual Desire Lines symposium is in its second year.
The roots of the Art & Ecology concept can be traced to a couple of art movements from the 60’s and 70’s – Conceptual Art and Land Art, along with a nod and a wink to the Fluxus and Situationist International groups.
The ‘Ecology’ spoken of is an extension of its conventional definition to deal with the various human dilemmas facing modern civilisation. From the actions of multinational corporations to the decline of traditional practices and from global warming to inter-cultural relations, these situations have changed the nature of the artist’s role, from the lone ranger of old, busying himself in a disused warehouse studio, to an interactive media savvy collaborative figure who roams between situations and organisations facilitating occurrences that would otherwise never have been considered as possible.
This presents society with the ready made weapon of ‘that’s not art’, the process of art’s evolution having sped up along with the rest of society we have very rapidly leapt from pictures on walls to prize winning artists who very rarely produce anything that could be called an object let alone an art work in the Constable, Turner, Holbein sense of the word. The artist has instead become the facilitator of projects. Gone are the days of presenting the world with future or past utopias, today it models, in real time, ways of being in the present world.
The artist is becoming an important figure for his ability to perceive paths where before there were only the segregating walls of a society bogged down by its own specialisms. Such perception is an important skill for the conditions in which we now live where collaborative interdisciplinary work may well hold answers unattainable to segregated disciplines.
One of the artists to speak at the ‘No way back’ conference in London was Brazilian born artist Maria Thereza Alves who is currently based in Germany.
At present she is working on a project called ‘Wake’, a project that began in Germany and is spreading now throughout Britain but one that has links to the majority of the globe and more than a fair chunk of human history.
In collaboration with German botanists Alves extracted all the seeds from a square metre of soil in the grounds of a plot in central Berlin that was currently being redeveloped. The seeds were then exposed to the necessary conditions for germination to take place and the results led to the exploration of the various histories of the location, its cultures and place in society.
Seeds have the capacity to lay dormant for hundreds of years and plants native to places as disparate as Argentina and China sprang up out of this ground below central Berlin. The continuation of this project in Britain takes the form of an exploration of old ballast dumping sites around the ports of the UK. Trade ships transporting goods would collect ballast from their destinations abroad only to dump it in Britain for it to be used in land reclamation, bringing with it all manner of plants that have lain dormant for hundreds of years. This simple gesture leads to an opening up of forgotten histories and a very different approach to the idea of native ecologies, as well as requiring the advice and assistance of various branches of society thereby encapsulating one of the many approaches within arts and ecology.
Simon Starling was a little known artist in this country before winning the 2005 Turner Prize and has a different approach. Throughout his work he has been interested in looking again at hither-too unconnected objects and the possibilities that conjoining these may bring.
Combining a bicycle and a chainsaw in 2003’s ‘Carbon’ created a moped. When parked you can remove its engine – the chainsaw – to cut timber. Then, strapped to the moped, the wood can be can be taken home to be used as fuel. It’s an example of how Starling looks at the multiple possibilities of individual objects.
Finding a disused shed on the banks of the Rhine he reassembled it into a boat and used the boat to float him and the rest of the shed down river to a gallery in Basle, Switzerland where the shed was reassembled in the gallery.
Both of these artists can be linked by a fascination with the reinterpretation of place and situation utilising perspectives that are not viewed through the eyes of conventional society.
So what of the wooden elephant that walked around London last May?
A performance by French street-theatre company Royal de Luxe, it brought a feeling of community and sense of wonder.
The performance broke down the barriers inherent in the ecology of communities like nothing else could, one did not require a ticket, an invitation, or a wealth of ‘high art’ understanding. One simply had to be there.
Art & Ecology is currently still a mystery wrapped in an enigma, requiring as it does the reconstruction of many of society’s current conventions, but the subject can only flourish from here. The litany of artists with an interest in science and scientists with an interest in arts is growing exponentially and this is reflected in the number of courses cropping up across the UK from Carlisle to Dartington and Manchester, and across the world. With its roots firmly embedded in long accepted artistic movements and its branches reaching out to many of societies’ common problems, at both a macro and micro level, it can but only become an important pedestal. Whether we all sit on it one day is up to us.
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