Hello I'm Stephen Molyneux and this is an online collection of various things I've worked on.
Having graduated with an English with Film & Media degree from the University of Stirling I moved back to London filled with inspiration as to how art and the theory behind a lot of it could aid humanity and make the world a better place.
When back in London I started working in various galleries and started an event called Utrophia in Greenwich.
Utrophia positioned itself straight away as 'a network of groups and individuals' and it evolved to become just that. We opened a project space, became a company, then a charity and we started programming more and more events that platformed many forms of art.
We were able to platform over ten years of events and we were able to do it with next to no financial support. Only our website and one event was supported by Awards for All and Deptford Challenge Trust consecutively.
Spanning across three project spaces plus various rural locations and London bars, Utrophia curated events that were realized by those who performed at them and nearly all of these events were free of charge.
The power of a network, one that was creatively charged and often acknowledged to be in itself, a political action, working outside the normal expectations of for profit enterprises, outside of norms of the gallery and the venue and to reinvent public space, is key to what lay at the heart of Utrophia.
Art has a great playful, irreverent, detachment from societal norms and this is why it can play such an important role in helping to fragment, reinvent and evolve many cultural norms that en masse can be so destructive.
I later noted how Utrophia's aims ran parallel to how Transition Towns aim to inspire local 'bottom up' approaches to preparing communities for rising oil prices due to peak oil. What we had been doing socially to be able to facilitate the network to create art events, fit very comfortably in with the concept of a Transition Town.
With DIY Deptford Action Group of the People I started to try and play with how art can aid in the presentation and application of Transition Towns concepts.
In our second project space 'The Ice Cream Factory' I was presented with the financial difficulties of running the network out of a poorly built industrial building which had huge heating bills. Our bills may have also been a little higher as we had signed over to 100% renewable sources of energy via Ecotricity, however, as how most financial constraints enabled innovation for the network, I started to look at alternatives. Home made solar thermal systems and log burners were installed in the building and our bills went down. I started to grow veg in our front yard and the project space in itself became a project.
I opened the space up for Deptford X festival as the 'DIY Deptford Action Group of the People Enrolment Centre'
I looked at the utility of art and how many of the projects I'd been working on as the director of the charity concerning the financial aspects of running a poorly built project space with large bills, tied in perfectly with renewable, sustainable DIY approaches.
I built a mobile garden that was housed in a car, shopping trolleys, an old market barrow and an ice cream bike in our yard. We regularly held events that would provide food grown in the garden.
With DIY Deptford being a branch of Utrophia, I was able to blur the lines between installation, performance and the realities of running the space and the outcomes were very real. After leaving the Ice Cream Factory DIY Deptford moved it's offices to the High St space and we got involved in a community garden project which was being proposed in opposition to the Thames Water super sewer project being housed on a plot of land just outside a local school.
As well as DIY Deptford, the challenge of running Utrophia out of a poorly built space and utilizing renewable sources of energy also led me to helping an old Uni friend on his magazine about very robust, eco construction methods. I worked on the Passive House Plus stand for Eco-build 2013 and have been helping out ever since.
I network at various events in London (PassivHaus Trust events / Ecobuild etc) sourcing sales and potential news stories and case studies for the UK edition. I've even taken photos of various events which have been published online for both the magazine and the PassivHaus Trust's website.
I'm also helping out with lobbying initiatives we're carrying out with the magazine. Having had success in influencing policy in Ireland, the publication now hopes to influence regulations in the UK in a similarly positive fashion. Passive house has over 20 years of proven recorded results in providing low energy, comfortable, sound buildings and should be seriously considered in the UK while formulating our version of the EU's 'Nearly Zero Energy' target for 2020.
Also from the DIY Deptford project came my ice cream bike. It at first had purple sprouting broccoli growing in it but was later refashioned to provide a vehicle for a health foods business called Horse Powered foods. Myself and Ben Cummins sold super smoothies on Brockley, Deptford and Greenwich market.
We worked these markets up until we had to move out of Utrophia's High St base and now we're operating off of a raft that we were donated by artist Ben Parry. Ben's pulling the raft from Liverpool to London, equipped with piano and health foods and when back in London the raft will play home to the Horse Powered health foods outlet.
The project aims to bring trade back to the canals and educate people about unusual, highly nutritious foods that range from the exotic to the foraged.
Our official website is under construction but here are some images etc in the meantime...
