An ongoing visual and critical discourse, queering the typical archive of art and the natural world. Focus on politically-minded art intervention by minority artists. (Submissions welcome!)
Perhaps the most essential feature of ecofeminist thought is that all
oppressions—whether men over women, First World over Third World,
north over south, white over black, adults over children,
human beings over other species, society over nature—have their roots in common.
The basis of power-over, of domination of one over the other,
comes from a philosophical belief that has rationalized exploitation on such a massive scale that we now not only have extinguished other
species but have also placed our own species on a trajectory toward
self-destruction.
Judith Plant,
"Learning to Live with Differences: The Challenge of Ecofeminist Community" Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature
By Cristina Awadalla, Piper Coutinho-Sledge, Alison Criscitiello, and Sonalini Sapra As guest editors of this forum, we created the theme with the intent to create a space critical of imperialism, neo-liberalism, sexism, racism, and other factors that both drive climate change and contribute to the global oppression of women. We know that climate change is driven by an extractive and exploitative relationship between humans and nature (see the 5th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report). Because the anthropogenic (caused by human activity) imprint has been substantial on natural climate variability, it follows that we can take action to change course. We must connect the complex social and ecological realities of our time, including recognizing the disproportionate impact of the climate crisis on marginalized communities. In short, we must seek out intersectional dialogues and analyses. Activists and scholars work in spheres [...]
This project is a translation of an entire library into ikebana. According to Japanese tradition, ikebana was originally created to “console the soul”. The form of a piece of ikebana, its colours and the choice of flowers used constitutes a form of language. The function of consoling and language – two aspects shared by books and flowers – are the starting point. So each piece of ikebana represents the works chosen by the artist following a principle of translation the rules of which have been reinvented, using the evocative power of the Latin and common names of the flowers, the names designed for their commercial exploitation, their pharmacological power or even the history of their travels.Hence the ikebana piece that pays homage to the Discours sur le colonialism [Essay on Colonialism] is made up of a palm tree branch (alma armata) and an upturned tulip (Tulip retroflexa), while the one paying homage to the Caractère fétiche de la merchandise [The fetishistic nature of consumer goods] is made up of a rose named “freedom” and three carnations.
The thoughts produced by literature, philosophy or anthropology (which make up a large part of the library chosen by the artist) are an integral part of our daily lives. But, in some ways, they are also “decorative objects”, in this context meaning that they create a frame, a stimulating and comforting environment, a “leap out of murderers’ row, act-observation.” (2), just as a library can be. From books to flowers, the project highlights our prejudices about what is offensive or inoffensive, about what belongs to the arts of the intellect and to those of the everyday.
DID YOU KNOW THAT ONLY 1% OF ILLINOIS'S PRAIRIES REMAIN?
#FORLOSTPRAIRIES
Illinois is known as the Prairie State, but over time, our native prairies have shrunk to cover less than 1% of their original area. As a result, most of us have never experienced our native ecosystem, which has largely been replaced by agriculture and lost to other development — a phenomenon being repeated across the country. This means increasingly scarce habitat and food sources for pollinators, like bees and butterflies, which depend upon this special habitat.
Kendler’s project, created as Artist-in-Residence with NRDC, raises awareness of this issue by transforming the façade of the Violet Hour using images of native Illinois flowers & pollinators to suggest a flourishing prairie. Hidden within the mural are a variety of pollinators embellished with QR codes. Upon scanning, passersby can sign up to receive their own native prairie seeds in the mail, bringing the vision of the project to backyards throughout Chicago, while also creating personal connections to a disappearing ecosystem.
You can join NRDC and Jenny Kendler’s efforts to protect pollinators and restore Illinois’ native ecosystem by signing up to receive your very own native prairie seeds — and experience the beauty and diversity of the prairie by creating your own backyard pollinator sanctuary.
The 2010 work Under the Glacier has its roots in the work Under the Glacier, a novel from the 1960s by Icelandic author Halldor Laxness. Here, Jonas uses the book as a vestigial influence, drawing from poetic Icelandic description of a glacier that is melting today. The work responds visually by "referring to certain miraculous aspects of the natural world." We see the dog, an icon reappearing often in Jonas' work, and her method of overlaying live video, recorded imagery, and performance.
"Ecofeminism is about connectedness and wholeness of theory and practice. It asserts the special strength and integrity of every living thing. For us the snail darter is to be considered side by side with a community's need for water, the porpoise side by side with appetite for tuna...We see the devastation of the earth and her beings by the corporate warriors, and the threat of nuclear annihilation by the military warriors, as feminist concerns. It is the same masculinist mentality which would deny us our right to our own bodies and our own sexuality, and which depends on multiple systems of dominance and state power to have its way." - Ynestra King, Women and Life on Earth: A Conference on Eco-Feminism in the Eighties, March 1980
"The Dialectic of Modern Feminism: According to the false dichotomy between subjective and objective-one legacy of male Western philosophy to feminist thought- we must root our movement either in a rationalist-materialist humanism or in a metaphysical-feminist naturalism. This supposed choice is crucial as we approach the ecology issue...We are either concerned with the 'environment' because we are dependent on it, or we understand ourselves to be of it, with human oppression part and parcel of the domination of nature." -HERESIES #13 FEMINISM & ECOLOGY
Artist, i.e. Action: Nance Klehm, Andrea Zittel, Mary Mattingly
If we think of environmental causes that have made the most headway in convincing the general public, a clear distinction emerges between the efforts of a violent yet didactic group such as Greenpeace and a long documentary series of speeches from politicians like Al Gore.
Unfortunately, we - the general American public - have become accustomed to hearing "save the ice caps and polar bears!" to the point that the shock of global climate change and pollution or biohazards becomes muted and tired with the same methods of didactic modes of information dissemination. As we approach 2015, the Netflix documentary, for example, becomes a familiar format for a certain level of environmental awareness, while allowing people to feel informed yet remain distant, far from implication. Perhaps, then, the present cultural climate calls for a return to the artistic collaboration to enact change, harkening back to 1970s activism, but with the distinction of welcoming new modes of technology and cross-disciplinary research to build community. There are a myriad of projects from the past five years alone in which humble, small-scale interventions (by artists far from Mark Dion levels of stardom) have grown roots and have an equal (if not more lasting) impact on local conversation.
Mary Mattingly, "Waterpod Project" 2009
In reading and researching texts on art and ecology along with current projects in this vein, a key split emerges in how organizers behind ecologically minded projects chose to self-identify. The chasm seems to form among people working with the aim to educate. Specifically, it parses out those comfortable with embracing the word "Artist" with a capital "A," and those who chose to eschew it for something more...practical? I align with the viewpoint that the oppositional binary "Artist" vs. "_____" is always a false one. Still, I am curious about the possible benefits of working creatively to better one's community-- with or without the label-- and perhaps more telling, with or without the resume or support of shows, accolades or inclusions in art institutions to make things happen.
Chicago resident Nance Klehm has been forthright in her self-identification as a steward of the earth first, artist second (while the label “artist" never appears on her website biography, her inclusion in reputable art exhibitions does). Having had the pleasure of spending an afternoon working with Klehm on her small but resilient Urbanscape soil remediation project in a lot in Garfield Park, I saw the passion she has for seeking out resources in science labs, art publicity, and community collaboration in equal force. Her projects, in whichever form they take, are made in the gesture of teaching people how to be aware of the breadth of ability and potential that resides in the ground beneath our feet. Klehm, who does most of the "groundwork," so to speak, of her own projects, speaks to a value in being actively aware and present of your surroundings: people, animals, plants, soil, water. The method of collaboration comes into play as she works with an architect partner on Social Ecologies, hires groups of people to work hauling local restaurant waste for composting, finding lab analysts to barter with to test soil samples, or works alongside one or two interns along with short-term volunteers to lend a hand. The bulk of the longterm bioremediation work, however, is currently directly resulting from Klehm's hands in the earth.
As a kind of counterpoint to Klehm, we may consider the work of California native Andrea Zittel.
In contrast to Klehm, Zittel is forthright in describing her work as encapsulated by a personal quest for autonomous sustainability through her rigorous art practice, though similar to Klehm, her work is multifarious in material attention and scope.
A distinct parallel with Klehm and Zittel (perhaps an unexpected one for a successful female artist) is their unabashed businesswoman positioning. Both of their websites, for example, show first not their personal biography, but presents the artist through their research projects. For example:
<<the A-Z enterprise encompasses all aspects of day to day living. home furniture, clothing, food all become the sites of investigation in an ongoing endeavor to better understand human nature and the social construction of needs.>>
An interesting split is where Klehm remains the face of each project, Zittel has gown a number of projects through the aid of art institutions to a level where she can now be commissioned to create site-specific works, including one at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indy Island.
The second floating structure built by Zittel to be inhabited, the Island also opened a new door to collaboration in her practice, when it became an ongoing residency site. As the IMA outlines, each summer since its conception in 2010, a commissioned artist has rowed their few belongings out to the structure, and made it their own.
Zittel also collaborates frequently with other artists on long term projects, including what remains, perhaps, her most well-known project, High Desert Test Sites, an initiative of Zittel and five other artists. Here, the mission is clear, generating from an earnest impulse to learn what one does not know, speaking of a thirst for knowledge as the most generative wellspring for creating work.
<< We believe there are many ways to live, and that learning from others can offer new insight and perspectives on ourselves, and the everyday environments we may think we already know well. >>
As Zittel notes in her statement to James Eischen of ArtForum, "we have become so successfully individualized that it is difficult for us to live collectively," which leads us back again to the question of living consciously, beginning with our own actions.
In addition to Zittel and Nance Klehm, an artist that is currently making some notable waves is New York based Mary Mattingly. In a kind of amalgamation of Zittel and Klehm's working methods, Mattingly's approach is exemplary of a contemporary artist working through topical issues of community, ecology, and self-sustainable lifestyle. As featured in New York: Close Up, Mattingly has two distinct paths of artmaking she pursues simultaneously: one, a self-critical line of inquiry that blurs the line between her life and work by using her possessions as sculptural material, or archiving all of her personal belongings, and the other being an ongoing series of public works.
In 2009, Mattingly created the popular autonomous habitat/public art space named the Waterpod Project, that managed to attract 200,000 visitors in one year and required a large collaborative effort to exist in New York City. In keeping with the habitable sculpture trend, Mattingly then embarked on a three part project growing out of an invention of spherical living systems incorporating a variety of small scale energy conservation methods, container gardening, and rainwater collection: Flock House Project, Triple Island, and WetLand. Similar to Zittel's Island residency, Mattingly's structures serve as temporary homes for fellow artists. What I appreciate most about this communal element to the work of Mattingly, Zittel, and Klehm alike, is the possibility for the work to take on a life beyond of what the artists could have conceived on their own.
Mary Mattingly, "Wetland" 2014
__________________________________________________________________
"When beginning to travel to Europe in the early 1990s... I became highly aware of the differences between European and American conceptions of personal space. My series of small deserted islands, which were first made for Münster, comes out of this consciousness. The Indianapolis project is an evolution of a larger idea for a habitable island.
Really good art simultaneously reveals both good and evil. It brings up complicated questions rather than proposing smug answers. “Indy Island” brings into focus fundamental issues of need, comfort, security, and privacy. It is an interesting exercise for people to examine their own day-to-day lifestyles and consider what they could live without, or live with. I am, however, hesitant to jump on the eco-bandwagon, because I feel that its moralistic point of view is not very interesting. Much of the movement for sustainable living is just another form of commoditization, which simply creates new levels of desire. I see many advertisements for people to get new and expensive eco-friendly products, but little of the current mentality has to do with thinking about actual needs."
Volcanic sand, cactus, grass, wood and metal plaques, 500cm × 230 × 50 cmCourtesy : Otobong Nkanga.
From the exhibition Tropicomania: the social life of plants
Otobong Nkanga. Contained Measures of Tangible Memories, 2009-2011
Wood, ceramic, mica, black soap, cassia fistula, indigo dye, alum, dimensions variable, unique artwork -La Galerie Contemporary Art Centre, 2011, Noisy-le-Sec, France
Otobong Nkanga Alterscape stories : Uprooting the past, 2006-2012, Photographs on aluminum 3 x (114 x 114 cm) Edition de 7 ex + 2 AP
Displacement, Geography, Colonialism:
There are always politics at play, whether buying a diamond engagement ring, or in the less conscious habits of filling your gas tank or turning on your faucet. Artists like Otobong Nkanga make and display beauty, yes. They also want us to listen, to pause and consider the stories that organic matter can tell us—both stories we may think we know well, and life and narratives seemingly so far removed from our own.
Like most of the living artists I admire, Kiki Smith makes work that refuses to be categorized easily. What strikes me again and again, however (and what remains lively debate among critics and scholars) are how the themes of death and rebirth are nearly always at play in her work. It is important to note that for the most part, Smith avoids working in the landscape as we traditionally understand it. Her method of working echoes the cyclical process of life and death in that she tends to work through subject matter in multiple incarnations, often through countless material forms and methods of working over several decades. Smith’s most arresting work holds a tension in juxtaposition of materials: lightness with weight, fragility with solid form. The artist's use of botanical imagery elicits varied responses. I have had many discussions with artist peers about her “craftiness” or use of imagery associated with the domestic sphere (and, consequently, the feminine). What may require a closer look is Smith’s intent behind every material she employs. In the work from 2008, Heute (Now), Smith specifically chose to collaborate with an expert glass craftsman to form ornate dandelion forms, setting a symbol of child's play in a coffin, in place of the body.
These ten glass plants (weeds, no less) take on an anthropomorphic quality as they stand, seeming to shoot precariously out of the solid wood coffin base. The delicate lines of glass reflect and refract light from the windows in the room where her show Her Home was installed. The coffin also rests on another element, a table meant to set the stage for a family dining space. In just this one piece, we have the domestic space supporting the spiritual world, and the ritual of death encompassing the natural world, that we attempt to compress and contain, as Martin Hentschel describes in his essay "A Place to Meditate, a Place for Stories: Kiki Smith's Installation Her Home at Villa Esters". As Hentschel notes, "society has repressed all thought of dying", while in Heute a symbol of growth literally springs forth from an incarnation of the definitive icon for finality. Like Smith's coffin, the cycle of the common dandelion, seeds traveling with the breeze, means it "already harbours [sic] new life within." Here, Smith calls into question our systems of ritual and parsing out of space— what happens with human ecology when slippage occurs between the familiar borders of the exhibition space, the private domestic space, the emotional landscape and the physical landscape?
"My work has evolved from minute particles within the body, up through the body, and landed outside the body. In the last few years it's been inside and outside. Now I want to roam around the landscape." -Kiki Smith, 1994
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