More Landscape and Art in London...

Sean Vicary http://www.seanvicary.com/ explores a personal narrative of loss, longing and belonging in the Welsh borders in a landscape film, in an exhibition at www.standpointlondon.co.uk/

17 January – 15 February 2014

Opening: Thursday 16 January 6–8.30pm

Event with environmental writer and founding editor of the Dark Mountain Project Paul Kingsnorth: Sat 15 February 4pm

“Predatory life under advanced capitalism… a zone where nothing else – not bodies, social life, religion, or aesthetics – matters.” TJ Demos 2012

Discussed sporadically in the current surge of ‘new nature writing’ and continually in the heated debates around ecology, biodiversity and climate change in the press and blogosphere, is an acknowledged global crisis in our relationship to the nonhuman. We must, suggests Timothy Morton among others, come to terms with a radically decentred humanity: our “unbearable intimacy” and interdependence with other species (many of which are now under threat because of our own actions). Responses to this crisis are as diverse as advocating a programme of ‘re-wilding’  (restoring precious habitats to a pre-human state via the re-introduction of vanished native species) to consuming as much fossil fuel as possible to ‘bring on’ the crisis and thus force the governments /corporate behemoths to make the vast and complex global shifts in our capitalist system that is required to make the (impossible?) necessary difference.

Jane Bennett, with her writing on the vitality of matter, contributes greatly to the idea that as humans we must engage deeply and imaginatively with otherness in its many forms to promote a generous, thoughtful ethical response to that which is outside our direct self-interest. 

Edwina fitzPatrick explores what happens when 'grey' and 'green' environments intersect, and how human interactions have, and are, affecting the nature/culture/ecology of a place. Her projects also reflect upon how climate change may affect this delicate balance. Edwina often collaborates with experts across a range of disciplines. These have included horticulturalists, biodiversity experts, engineers, architects, perfumers, foresters, archivists, and composers. Edwina has made a new piece for (Un)natural Narratives that forwards her proposition that the green environment is a landscape-archive. Wood for the Trees embeds miniature forests into an old encyclopaedia - questioning what we consider a natural landscape to be and raising the historically and politically determined nature of most of our supposedly ‘wild’ spaces in the UK. 

In 2010 Eleanor Morgan travelled to Folly Island off South Carolina to create a golden ring from the silk of a local spider. She was following a tale of a soldier stationed there during the American Civil war who discovered the spider, created a machine to spin the silk into jewellery, and sold it as real gold. Eleanor found the spider, collected its silk and made the ring, but the effects of Folly Island continue. (Un)natural Narratives displays just a small selection of her ongoing projects into islands, follies, searching and phantasies, including a lithographed island-table and a video depicting her peculiar transformation into an undersea creature.

Sean Vicary’s extraordinary film Lament interweaves site-specific found objects, animation, spoken word and music to explore a personal narrative of loss, longing and belonging in the Welsh borderlands. The film incorporates Canu Heledd, a 7th Century Welsh poem cycle dealing with the fall of the Brythonic Kingdom of Pengwern, which referred to, Vicary discovered, the small rural village in Shropshire where he went to school. “I’m fascinated how the land has been shaped by generations of interaction with the environment – the enclosure of the commons, how the field names on old tithe maps are echoed in the remains of cottages and broken pipe stems that appear during ploughing, how everything exists simultaneously on different time scales: 8 bee lifespans to one fieldmouse, 40 mouse lifespans to one human, 4 human lifespans to one oak tree etc.”

Edwina fitzPatrick is based in London, and is currently completing her AHRC funded, practice-based PhD, which has involved working with the Forestry Commission at Grizedale in Cumbria.  Other recent projects include the Reputationsprogramme of sited artworks, in Castlemilk, Glasgow.
<http://www.edwinafitzpatrick.co.uk>

Eleanor Morgan is an artist and researcher based in London. She completed her doctoral studies in 2013 at the Slade School of Fine Art on the human uses of spider silk.  Recent exhibitions and presentations include: The Making of Folly Island (Solo), Slade Research Centre, London; Duet, UCL Art Museum, London, 2013; A Labour of Moles, dOCUMENTA(13), Kassel, 2012; Spinning with Spiders, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2011; Lines of Desire, Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown, 2010; Fine Things to be Seen, Intervention Gallery, London, 2010.
<http://eleanormorgan.com>

Sean Vicary is a moving image artist based in West Wales. Recent work includes commissions for Animate Projects /Channel 4 Random Acts, Blinc Digital Arts Festival 2013 and Rhôd: Future, Nature, Culture. Recent exhibitions include Welsh Artist of The Year, St David’s Hall, Cardiff, Temporary Residence, Aid & Abet, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, OAF International Film Festival, ArKo Art Center, Seoul, Korea.
<http://www.seanvicary.com>

This exhibition has been curated by Fiona MacDonald

Further information: Fiona MacDonald: 0207 739 4921 / standpointgallery@btconnect.com
Venue:   Standpoint Gallery, 45 Coronet Street, London N1 6HD
Gallery Open:  Wednesday – Saturday, 12-6pm
Web:  www.standpointlondon.com