Into the Unknown: Navigating Spaces, Terra Incognita and the Art Archive

This paper is a navigation across time and space – travelling from 16th century colonial world maps which marked unknown territories as Terra Incognita, via 18th century cabinets of curiosities; to the unknown spaces of the Anthropocene Age, in which for the first time we humans are making a permanent geological record on the earth’s ecosystems. This includes climate change. The recurring theme is loss and becoming lost. I investigate what happens when someone who is lost attempts to navigate and find parallels between Terra Incognita and the art archive, and explore the points where mapping, archiving and collecting intersect. Once something is perceived to be at risk, the fear of loss and the impulse to preserve emerges. I investigate why in the Anthropocene Age we have a stronger impulse to the archive and look to the past, rather than face the unknowable effects of climate change. This is counterpointed by artists, whose hybrids practices engage with re-imaging and re-imagining today’s world, thereby moving us forward into the unknown. ‘Becoming’ is therefore another central theme. The art archive is explored from multiple perspectives – as an artist, an art archive user and an archivist – noting that the subject, the consumer and the archivist all have very differing agendas. I question who uses physical archives today and how we can retain our sense of curiosity. I conclude with a link to an interactive artwork, which visualises, synthesises and expands this research

Artists Kicking Back: Brief metaphors for the birds and bees

This article linked Felix Guattari's The Three Ecologies New Formations article (1989), with three contemporary video makers' work: Jordan Baseman's Fabula Jaki Irvine's In a World Like This Edwina fitzPatrick's Biostrata After Von Humboult It is a peer reviewed 6000 word article for MIRAJ Volume 10 Numbers 1 & 2

Getting Real: Interactive Fieldwork

The Getting Real: Interactive Fieldwork walking tour is one of the CCW Graduate School's Year of Resilience events. It explores what happens when research and teaching take place outside the academic institution through engaging directly with a situation, place or space. How might this direct experience engage with our understandings of embodied (physically understood) proximity, and through this allow us to empathise with diverse situations. Taking ‘fieldwork’, i.e. when we leave our (enclosed) laboratories, be they the overall college or studios/workshops as a starting point, the walking tour invites us to makes connections with each other and the world beyond Wimbledon College of Arts. The day is led by artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey - Heather also has a background in theatre and performance, so it is an opportunity to talk across the Fine Art and Theatre programmes and levels. They have innovative insights into both research techniques and making processes, which in turn connects with their resilient approach to living and engaging with space and place. They have worked on many occasions with Cape Farewell, who are currently in residence at the CCW Graduate School

An Orchid Collection

Whilst ‘exotic’ plants are now commonly available across Europe, orchids are still able to inspire strong passions. Edwina became so fascinated by orchid collectors and their obsessions, that she painstakingly replicated over 200 phalaenopsis (moth) orchids as an act of homage. These 3d, life sized paper flowers are pinned to the gallery wall as though they’re 19th century butterfly specimens. Whilst looking identical to living orchids, these replicas flatten and ‘neuter’ the plants reproductive (bi sexual) organs. No pollinating insect would approach them, although they have a strong allure for humans because they are beautiful, ‘exotic’ and mimic female sexual parts. Poignantly, most phalaenopsis orchids are infertile due to constant hybridisation by international breeding programmes. 'An Orchid Collection' consists of a series of installations and sculptures which explore nature, nurture and obsession. Together, they unfold the intricacies and unpredictability of breeding patterns, and raise questions about race, otherness, and integration. They look at biodiversity - making connections between human activity and plants' sustainability. Other works explore our current fixation on youth and longevity. An Orchid Collection was made between 2005-11, and first exhibited in 2008

The Art of Living

The Art of Living was commissioned by Rachel Bradley and Jason E. Bowman as part of the Reputations programme of sited artworks in Castlemilk, Glasgow. It was funded by the Scottish Arts Council, and Glasgow City Council. It was one of two Reputations commissions in the area, created in collaboration with the Castlemilk Environment Trust. In November 2005, Edwina started her commission to transform an area of Holmbyre Woods, on the edge of Castlemilk, Glasgow. The Woods are located between the local crematorium and a farmer’s graveyard. Because of this, she used the subject of human mortality as the starting point for the commission. The Art of Living’s emphasis was on celebrating and reinforcing people’s sense of vitality. Throughout the 18 month project, Edwina worked closely with local residents and Scottish biodiversity experts to create a Blood-Chlorophyll labyrinth, which acts as a spiral pathway into the newly created woodland walks. The Art of Living focused on the changing nature and diversity of plant-life to develop and enhance our sense of nurture for a place. The artwork highlighted the distinctive features of the local woodlands, the panoramic views across the surrounding areas, and reintroduced indigenous wild plants to increase biodiversity. It also acknowledged that there is always a tension when crossing the threshold of a woodland or forest; that of being seduced or frightened. It is deliberately ambiguous whether this seduction or fear is inspired by nature or another human being

Practising in Uncertainty Colloquium

This was the first collaborative event to take place between the Graduate Schools of CCW and Glasgow School of Art. It was manifested through live links between London and Glasgow; and the artists speaking include Heather Ackroyd (Ackroyd & Harvey), Justin Carter, David Cross (Cornford and Cross), Edwina fitzPatrick, Tania Kovats, and Mark Wilson (Snaebjornsdottir & Wilson). Edwina also convened the event. The Colloquium explored how artists both practice, and practise in uncertainty. It focused on how we might create and present artworks which investigate cultural (mis)understandings about biodiversity, landscape or site. This included how audiences might engage with the actual artworks

The witnessed and mediated ‘natural’ environment in remote regions

The witnessed and mediated ‘natural’ environment proposes a fusion between a performance, provocation, and illustrated paper. It involves a highly scripted performance in the form of a quasi lecture, with pre-recorded video interruptions taking place behind the presenter – sometimes agreeing with her scripted opinion, sometime not. Sometimes, both virtual and actual contributors will play devil’s advocate. These collaborative contributions are from writers, scientists and artists that the presenter has already collaborated with, who engage with the now contested term of the Anthropocene. The presenter will form a broad framework, which is then structured, re-defined and re-aligned in response to the collaborators video comments. All participants have creative and critical input to the final presentation. The presentation deliberately combines quite literally mediated (the video) and witnessed (the performance) aspects, reflecting its subject matter. As few of us have been to the Polar Regions or to the depth of the seas or deserts, the presentation considers the proximity of remote environments and the biodiversity that they support, and how we engage with, and witness them. Some of the collaborators have. What might happen when we shift from being a spectator into a witness, because what is happening in front of our eyes is an actuality, not a media representation? As critical writer, James Polchin states, ‘The word witness, as we have come to define it in the latter half of the twentieth century, is more readily equated with the experiences of surviving trauma, investing the act of witnessing with an ethical responsibility.... to witness, especially in the context of historical visual documents, demands not only a speaking, but a speaking out’. So when you are witness to something, you become implicated in it. This is contrasted with mediated, and media-based (mis)understandings of remote regions and artworks sited or originating there. So much footage about them comes to us through the Internet or TV – it is distanced, so we are able to switch off – literally and metaphorically. Alternatively, the actual artwork there becomes superseded and replaced by its representations/mediations

Arboreal Laboratory

Arboreal laboratory consists of three intertwined gallery installations, which resulted from a two-year residency between 2002-04 at Stour Valley Arts at King’s Wood in Kent. The work consciously relocates a rural experience to an urban setting, and refers to displacement and longing. The artworks were developed from a series of eight experiments conducted in the woods, which explored sound, scents, vision and time. It also involved a temporary artwork in the Woods themselves. In mythology the Gods always smelled good: The installation title references the god Pan, who, as the primordial renegade, smelled bad. His animal presence was dismissed by Rene Descartes, and our relationship with the green environment irrevocably changed as a result of this. The installation involves four seemingly empty glass vessels (half alembic, and half perfume bottle in style), presented on clear plinths. The vessels contain four scent moments in King’s Wood across the seasons, and were created in collaboration with Quest International using headspace technology (a highly sophisticated device which analyses and allows synthetic replication of smells). The results of this were combined by a perfumer, Dominique Le Lievre. The ‘viewers’ release the scent by moving past the vessels. The emphasis of this part of the project was on longing, on the invisible as opposed to the intangible. It also involved synthetically recreating the natural environment, and collapsing the annual cycle of seasons into a single space and time. Cage: The title refers to the fact that forests are designed as enclosures for animals, yet they cannot contain birds. The installation was a sound piece of birdsong – there were no visual components at all – and drew on research into why birds sing. Birdsong is also a good indicator of the overall health of a woodland. It is mostly produced by small birds that have to expend a huge amount of energy in producing the volume of sound required to transmit through the trees. Birds cannot sing unless they have sufficient food to eat. The 12-minute soundtrack, each minute equals a 24 hour cycle in a month in the year, is a condensed and idealised bird opera over a year. It operates as a time-map of bird movement and migration. Transpiration: During the residency it became apparent that grey squirrels (introduced to England a century ago), were devastating deciduous woodlands by stripping the bark in order to access the trees sap. Without sap, a tree cannot produce leaves or transpire. They are also driving the native red squirrel out of the southern parts of England, and diminishing bird populations by eating bird’s eggs. The triptych links the two other installations, and takes their premise further by looking at trees to explore the contradictions and complexities of current ecological and political debates relating to woodlands. Sap and chlorophyll are taken as metaphors for the symbiotic nature of woodlands, and our complex relationships with them. The soundtrack involves a symphony of three different types of birdsong: - One is stretched (apparently birds interpret song at 3 times the speed that humans do, so can distinguish complex readings of the call/song). - One is in human real time - i.e. how we normally hear birdsong - One is synthetically created using a mobile phone Each video is a different length so that the each version of the birdsong soundtracks and visual narratives are perpetually re-evolving. The mobile phone birdsongs were created in collaboration with composer, Matthew King. A female and male (Adam and Eve?) dressed as red squirrels plant an apple tree. The introduction of an apple tree to an English woodland is not unusual – historically it is a by-product of a forester's or charcoal burner's lunch. As many of the arboreal laboratory experiments explored the borders of visibility, the only permanent sited work that Edwina wanted to add to King's Wood was another tree. Who would notice another one? The answer to this was that the resident fallow deer did. They immediately realized that the Wood's biodiversity had been added to, and promptly ate it

The Artist who looked inside trees

This short paper/ PechaKucha's key theme was: What is visible and invisible in a forest, given that dense foliage often obscures our line of sight, and the macro-micro starts playing tricks on us? It went into detail about using dendrochronology to evidence climate change and how artists are able to fuse anecdotal and scientific data to make this urgent issue accessible

Lost and Found

The exhibition consisted of four components. 1. The Lost and Found is an interactive digital archive, featuring all known artworks sited in Grizedale Forest for a week or more, since 1977. It deliberately fuses the artworks with the place that they were created for. The Lost and Found archive aims to echo the experience of trying to find the sculptures when walking through Grizedale – some are extremely difficult to find, whilst others are very accessible. Lost and Found has videos of interviews embedded within it, which literally give the artists a voice. The interviews present a rooted perspective on how and why specific sculptures were created, whilst also revealing a wider perspective on how the residencies have changed over the years. 2. The Lost Tour Guide suit. This handmade suit was worn by Edwina to interview visitor's to the Forest. It was printed with the OS map of the map of the area, with Grizedale on the back of the jacket. This meant that Edwina could help navigate other people around the Forest, but could not do so herself without taking off the jacket. 3. The Missing Persons’ Files wall panels show the chronology of the Grizedale artists’ residencies, which were set up in 1977 by Peter Davies from Northern Arts (the then Regional Arts Association for northern England), in liaison with Bill Grant from Grizedale Forestry Commission. They track the different approaches to sited practice over the 5 decades. 4.Anxious Roots and Routes The first thing that Edwina did when she arrived at Grizedale was to head out and attempt to enter the Forest accompanied by a 5.5 foot (1.6 metre) red balloon. She continued this over the cycle of a year, simultaneously shooting these attempts from two perspectives – one of the cameras was suspended in a harness under the balloon; the other was sited on the ground. The Anxious Roots and Routes videos aim to visualise how a city dweller, who is new to the Forest, might feel when entering it for the first time. Would they feel exhilaration, or anxiety? If it is the latter, what form might that anxiety take? A fear of the forest itself, rooted in old fairytales? A fear of getting lost and not being able to find your way out? A fear of sudden or unexpected change caused by events such a storms or felling? A fear of losing everything as a result of tree disease or the effects of climate change? In the videos, Edwina is dressed in her “city” clothes. The red balloon is a metaphor for anxiety. It is the equivalent of a red map pin, saying “HELP. I’M HERE”. It was easily punctured, which caused very real anxiety when floating a state-of-the-art HD video camera 6 metres above the ground amidst sharp branches. The two cameras produced very different readings of the Forest