Working at contemporary visual art projects over the last decade, I have been collecting ideas and often thinking about whether contemporary art has a role or means to engage with ecological issues (see my Artist Statement below).
My involvement on an environmental tree project in Ireland in 1996-7 prior to going to art college for 6 years, my past work as a scientist, bird counting on an unpeopled atoll in the Pacific and recent voluntary work for a local community Green Party have all effected my ongoing work and concerns.
I have literally stumbled across what little information their is about contemporary art and ecology projects. It appears to be unexplored territory by many creative types, even though daily headlines have us all thinking about climate change etc. Historically our creative people have always reflected and being part of how society constructs its relationship with the natural world. Perhaps our art teaching institutions and exhibition spaces are too distanced from these type of concerns? Or is it that much of society is distanced from relating and understanding our dependence on our fragile and limited natural world? Maybe new artistic strategies are needed? And is contemporary art relevant to the average person these days ?
Anyway, a tree project that I revisited in 2005, ‘the local project’, gave me another chance to engage with these questions. Strategies I developed and struggled with, discovered more by chance than by foreword planning, were surprisingly positive.
My ecoart thoughts and experiments needed a home so hence the idea for this blog. I often find I am trying to write my way through understanding my practice (yes, generally a very muddled experience). I also know there must be more people out there who are working in this area as I have been inspired to continue by others.
Generally I believe creative practitioners can make valued contributions, working alongside scientists, educators, forestors – projects that involve whole communities will undoubtedly be the ones that will inspire us the most!
Love to hear from you
Cathy
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Artist Statement: Cathy Fitzgerald
I’m continually thinking about strategies – on and off-line models, for art to work with science to effect community connection / dialogue and actions to respond to ecological issues’
My creative practice is strongly interdisciplinary as it has evolved from working in agricultural research science for eight years (Meat Industry Research of NZ) then later graduating from Art college with a BA (1st class Honours), then followed by MA in Fine Art Virtual Realities (National College of Art & Design, Dublin (NCAD), 1996-02. I have actively instigated residencies within science institutes (St James Hospital, 2001 and an Arts Council residency at Trinity College 2004-5, Dublin) and for environmental NGO’s (Crann – Ireland’s Tree Organisation, 2006).
My past experience in science research means that I am confident of more than illustrating scientific information; instead I actively seek engagement and exchange of information, ideas, other perspectives from professional scientists, as well as students, politicians and members of communities in which my projects are based. My work would aspire to the ‘conversational drift’ project approach of Helen & Newton Harrison, the call for a more interdisciplinary approach in writings of Agnes Denes, not to mention art informing politics in the work of Joseph Beuys.
Like these artists, I believe a participatory, interdisciplinary approach is crucial in responding to ecological issues. Science, now so specialised and technical, can more often than not, obscure the overall picture that show mankind’s activities have caused the world’s ecological crisis (see my thesis: ‘Science and the Eclipse of the Earth 2000, later republished CIRCA 2001). An appreciation of the premise of Deep Ecology*, where if the ecosphere, and not only mankind is to survive, the place of human beings and their use/waste of natural resources must be re-evaluated, also provides an ethical framework for my research. As an individual artist, seeking to create cultural responses to climate change, looking at forests, which have such a major role to play in mitigating climate change**, seems an important place to start. But it is the new sustainable, permanent forestry recommended by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which has economic, ecological, social as well as major climate benefits, that catches my imagination. Also, such forestry, mimicking natural cycles of growth and regeneration also allows one to examine, perhaps as metaphor, that the ‘best ‘teacher’ on living sustainably on this planet is nature itself.
My interest in this type of forestry is not recent; I am currently looking at these ideas, creating work in my ongoing project ‘the Holly Wood Diaries’ (begun in early 2008, see my blog www.ecoartnotebook.com) and this builds on previous work with foresters as an artist (The Local project revisited, 2006) and even earlier film and exhibition work with the Irish tree organisation, Crann, since 1996 (see www.cathyfitzgerald.ie).
My work exists as ongoing research yet it continually inspires me to create short films, photographic documentation, and writings, often including the voices of scientists and others interested in the issues or work. Much of my work is primarily directed to be shown online, on my own websites but also networked through social media to art and ecology networks and other online grass-root organisations actively involved in climate change action. The urgency in needing to inform people about climate change also convinces me that showing work in this manner can connect and influence many more than relying on traditional art exhibition.
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*Deep ecology seeks a more holistic view of the world we live in and seeks to apply to life the understanding that separate parts of the ecosystem (including humans) function as a whole.
**They currently contribute about one-sixth of global carbon emissions when cleared, overused or degraded; they react sensitively to a changing climate; when managed sustainably, they produce wood-fuels as a benign alternative to fossil fuels; and finally, they have the potential to absorb about one-tenth of global carbon emissions projected for the first half of this century into their biomass, soils and products and store them – in principle in perpetuity (FAO, 2009).
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