Adelaide Crosby
Towards a New Ecology
This July begins with the news of the hottest June on record in the UK, a fact which, while decidedly disturbing, should come with little surprise. As the oscillating state of the climate continues to provoke disruption, unease, and debate, the art world grows increasingly eco-conscious, driven by a diverse pool of multimedia artists, writers, and curators in a state of emergency. This list features artists and exhibitions in a number of forms which highlight nature, ecology, and our changing environmental systems, and may serve as a starting point should you wish to plunge further into the world of eco-art.
A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography at the Tate Modern, 6th July 2023- 14th January 2024.
This wide-ranging exhibition dwells on extremes, with the ambitious goal of compounding and uniting, through images, the disparate experiences of life on the African continent. Questions of climate present themselves in the treatment of urban and rural spaces, migratory paths, and activism. Artists like Andrew Esiebo, whose ongoing project, Mutation, charts the rapidly developing and overpopulated urban landscape of his native Lagos, seek nuance in terrains of contradiction.
Jean Cooke: Ungardening at The Garden Museum, 21st June – 10th September 2023.
While less explicitly climate-focused, Ungardening, a collection of English painter Jean Cooke’s garden paintings, reflects contemporary calls for rewilding and an attention to the mutually beneficial relationships which can develop between nature and those who nurture it. An avid gardener, who derived pleasure and creative power from her largely wild plots in Blackheath and Sussex, Cooke’s whimsical and effusive botanical painting is a joy to witness and a testament to the inspiration which low-intervention growing can supply. Ungardening is curated by Andrew Lambirth, and is a rare opportunity to view this grouping of Cooke’s works in dialogue.
Dear Earth: Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis, at the Southbank Centre, 21th June – 3rd September 2023.
This summer, Hayward Gallery at the Southbank Centre is showcasing the work of fifteen artists tackling questions related to the climate crisis with optimism as well as anxiety. Indeed, in the words of Nigerian-born environmental artist Otobong Nkanga, a figurehead for the exhibition, ‘caring is a form of resistance.’ As part of the 53rd Poetry International festival, Belinda Zhazi will also be running a Dear Earth Poetry Workshop at the gallery on the 22nd of July. The festival has an emphasis this year on ‘ecopoetry and activism,’ and runs from between July 21-23.
The Ecology of Eclogues Workshop with John Kinsella, at the National Poetry Library, Royal Festival Hall, 22st July 2023.
Another poetics workshop affiliated with this year’s edition of the Poetry International festival is John Kinsella’s introduction to the eclogue: a form of ecological poem containing multiple voices. These contending speakers may be ‘an environmentalist and an industrialist,’ or ‘an official and a climate protestor,’ tensions which endeavour to establish a dynamic verbal interplay and dismantle what Kinsella feels to be the failings of pastoralism.
Out of Time: Poetry from the Climate Emergency ed. by Kate Elspeth Simpson.
Poet, editor, and London Magazine contributor Kate Elspeth introduces this 2021 collection, which remains a powerful anthology and apt entry point for those with an interest in climate-focused poetry. The collection is comprised of five sections- Emergency, Grief, Transformation, Work, and Rewilding- and charts the path from urgency to action in fifty poems from an impressive roster of contributing poets.
The multi-media work of Zimbabwean-Scottish artist and curator Sekai Machache deals, at once, with conceptions of identity whilst occupying multiple cultural spaces, and physical, ecological issues, a theme which is particularly present in her 2021 film Profound Divine Sky. The project was shot in the Flow Country peatlands in the Scottish Highlands, a site of substantial environmental conservation efforts. Profound Divine Sky, which is currently on view at the Royal Scottish Academy, showcases Machache’s indigo-dyed garments, video-editing, and a series of poetry and ambient soundscapes which figure the artist’s place within this ancient and vulnerable setting. In addition to frequent exhibition, Machache’s work can also be accessed through her website.
Adelaide Crosby is a student at the University of St Andrews, entering her final year of a degree in Art History and English. She specialises in Medieval Christian and Islamic manuscript painting, 20th century Irish literature, and the folklore and ritual tradition of the British Isles. Alongside her studies, she is a literary editor for Stereoscope Magazine, and the co-founder of a seasonal micro-bakery.
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