25/06/10 - Inspirational projects and artists

Posted: Jun 25, 12:21 pm

Well it always important to contextualize ones thinking. My work falls within the practice of a few categories, should anyone wish to try to locate my work onto an identifiable cultural radar. I have two threads of creative practice. Both I see as a form of activism and sustainable lifestyle communication. I see my work less as art and more of a means of conversation, of communication.

I curate events, feasts in particular and I do this under the This is Rubbish anti food waste campaign that I set up with Rachel Solnick in November 2009. This side of my work is particularly influences by site specific intervention, relational aesthetics, fluxus, the situationists, and political art. The other side of my practice explores sustainability and ecological inter connectedness through the medium of illustration and printed textile design. I am interested in the possibility of people wearing their ideas and feelings, while also being able to invest in ethical and sustainable long lasting garments. I have recently decided to commit myself entirely to my practice, and both aspects of my practice are coming into fruition.

There are many objects, encounters, people, ideas and places that influence me. In this article I’ll keep it about other artists and creative conversationalists. The theme that unites the featured artists is that their work is about people’s relationships to the environment around them. Most of the artists work is set within an urban context, and therefore focusses on the emotional and psychological effect of the cityscape, a place without nature or abundant bio diversity. Such work is important to me, as it demonstrates the fact that well being is increased for humans and bio diversity when humans co habit with natural spaces, open spaces and green and bio diverse spaces. I would like to see emotional mapping done on participants as they walk for an hour in a rural and bio diverse environment, and for an hour as they walk around an urban jungle. As most of the global population now dwell in cityscapes, it is really important that human well being and the preservation of bio diversity within cities are prioritized. The two are connected, and by preserving nature reserves within cities, human welfare and bio diverstiy, not to mention food security could be increased.

Fritz Haeg
Animal Estates

Fritz Haeg is a multi media, inter disciplinary communicator. In his essay for Freize magazine, Border Control he refuses to identify himself as an artist. Although he is a practicing artist, his discomfort with calling himself an artist opens up interesting questions about the perception of artists within society. Here is an interesting dichotomy. The artist wants to integrate and work within communities, within non arts social spaces, yet the very title artist can make their collaborative work difficult because of the cultural pretences associated with the idea of an artist. The artist today is not someone who makes expensive representations of real life for the wealthy, and artist is an inter connector, a sensale, someone who through many means of communication (physical, visual, tactile, architectural etc) can build bridges between people. These bridges should result in tangible outcomes, spaces, objects, experiences and events that are co curated by the people who want to use such works. If the artist is a catalyst for social change, and a person or force with the ability to imagine other ways of living and make them real, an experiential alchemist; let them make their art, not define it.

“Why am I so ambivalent about identifying myself as an artist? Perhaps because it feels so presumptuous. Let others decide if what I am doing is indeed art. Even the act of writing the word ‘art’ is making me uncomfortable. It has such privileged and rarefied connotations in our society, but at the same time everyone seems to be an artist. Maybe identifying myself as one limits my freedom by implying that everything I do aspires to be art. I’m not aiming for art, I’m aiming for life, and if art gets in the way, that’s fine. As the writer Annie Dillard finally realized when she was learning to chop wood, you have to aim for the chopping block not the wood.”

Fritz Haeg, Border Control, Frieze Magazine, pp 4-5 / October 2009

What I like about Haeg’s work, work not art is the variety of ways of exploring contemporary ecological relationships. He takes a perspective that is not human centric, and serves animals, bio diversity and human welfare through his work. Animal Estates is a project where his clients are animals, not people. The starting point is asking the questions whether a city is defined by the number of humans living there, or the lack of wildlife living there.

“The on-going Animal Estates initiative produces events and exhibitions to consider the animals that we share our cities with, and creates dwellings for animals that have been unwelcome or displaced by humans. As animal habitats dwindle daily, Animal Estates proposes the reintroduction of animals back into our cities, strip malls, garages, office parks, freeways, front yards, parking lots, skyscrapers, and neighborhoods. Animal Estates intends to provide a provocative 21st century model for the human-animal relationship that is more intimate, visible and thoughtful.”

Read more here; www.fritzhaeg.com

Chritstian Nold
Bio Mapping / Emotion Mapping

Christian Nold’s work allows the internal to be external. By reapropriating bio technology to be used to monitor the emotional welfare of people in different everyday environments, he is able to argue for the redesign and renovation of various urban environments. Emotional cartograpahy allows for emotional data relating to particular locations to be compiled and uncomfortable and uneasy physical spaces to be indentified and improved. Not only an environmental emotional cartographer, but also an expert on crown behavior, Nold’s work pays attention to expression of needs from the ground up, by designing experiences and technologies that allow the peoples voices and feelings to be expressed in ways, that they simply wouldn’t otherwise be able to.

“Bio Mapping is revolutionary methodology and tool for visualising people’s reactions to the external world.

Over the last five years, over 2000 people have taken part in community mapping projects in over 25 cities across the globe. In structured workshops, participants re-explore their local area with the use of a unique device invented by Christian Nold which records the wearer’s Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), which is a simple indicator of emotional arousal in conjunction with their geographical location. On their return, a map is created which visualises points of high and low arousal.

The unique methodology of this project involves working with groups of people to interpret and analyse the data and adding annotating onto these individual emotion tracks. Through this process communal Emotion Maps of lots of people’s emotion data are constructed which are packed full of personal observations and highlight the issues that people feel strongly about.