I'm just going to share my screen.
So it's a huge welcome to everyone from
across the world who is able to join us
today.  I'm speaking to you from an
extremely warm East London and welcome to the online research forum at
The Courtauld Institute of Art for this
two-day conference
'Art History in Climate Change.'
I'm just going to start by saying a few
excuse me introductory words and then
I'll move on to introduce the conference
more broadly
the variable appearance of street murals on the
boarded up shop fronts of Soho, lower
Manhattan, during the recent civil unrest
in New York City following the killing
of George Floyd raises questions about
the differing efficacy of art and its
institutions to represent and affect
social change in our present moment.
Whilst many boutiques in Soho covered
their windows in hoardings at the onset
of the Covid-19 nine lockdown in New
York many more wooden barriers were
erected once people had taken to the
streets in protest against the
systematic murder of black lives
The tokenism of many upmarket stores
subsequently commissioning artists to
decorate their hoardings with the
imagery of civil rights as in the
depiction of Martin Luther King on the
Hugo Boss store that I'm showing you
here is in marked contrast to the
impromptu appearance of artists on the
gentrified streets of Soho painting
murals in defiance of shelter-in-place
orders as documented by the Soho social
impact group and I'm just showing you
here one of their recent Instagram posts
documenting some of this impromptu
artistic production.
One gesture works in defense of consumption
guarding private property with a flimsy
carapace that represents the
aestheticization of political activism
into a bland liberalism.
The other shows the possibility of the
reclamation of civic space through
artistic seizure of representation in a
city, indeed a world, in which the flows
of capital have been dammed up
significantly due to Covid-19.
The renewed but hardly new injunction to
question the very foundations of our
artistic and cultural institutions in
the light of racism and systemic
inequality goes far beyond the
publication of any diversity statement
and pertains to the roles of art and art
history in the climate crisis.
It is one of the great joys of art history that its tools and insights can be mobilized
to interpret the sensory, visual and
aesthetic world around us and further
that we can be empowered to take a huge
range of objects of study.
The current debates around decolonization of the
discipline involve not merely expansion
but the questioning in the heart and in
the head of why this is taken so long to
come about.  
Indeed if our historical understandings of
representation have suppressed
alternative patterns of knowledge.
Many of the papers that follow will address
these issues. We shall consider the role
representation plays in our
understanding of climate and ask why
some images of climate activism and
environmental disaster might appear and
become more alluring, effective and
widespread than others.
We'll also explore the particular dialectical
potentials of art in the effort to avert
catastrophic levels of warming. 
Papers will address
the work of artists based in Europe,
North America, Australia, Africa and
South-East Asia and consider the
methodological implications of both
artists and art historians in global
warming.
This conference was originally to take
place in person
at the Courtauld Institute of Art and
one of the consequences of
moving everything online is that we have
had to have a dramatically smaller event
than we were looking to have otherwise.
So I want at this point to say thanks to
all those who submitted papers for this
conference and as you all, as many of you
know, if we had been working in person
we would have had the time and the
resource to bring many more people to
speak.
I'd also like to thank Alixe Bovey
the Head of Research at The Courtauld for
her enduring support for this whole
process and also the team in the
Research Forum particularly Fern Insh
Acatia Finbow and Grace Williams for
everything they do and everything
they've done across this year to be
such wonderful colleagues at The Courtauld.
I also want to thank the Association for
Art History who very generously provided
extra financial support for this
project
and also our BSL interpreters at
Dan and Anna
who will be with us throughout the day.
And finally of course I would like to thank all
our speakers for their efforts to
prepare their work for all of us during
this pandemic.
And all of you for coming  to hear the proceedings.
So how we're going
to run this is we're going to have four
panels today and the papers will be
divided into two panel sessions
two paper sessions, excuse me, and these will
run for fifty-five minutes each.
There will be regular breaks and a longer
thirty five minute break around three o'clock
We're aiming for all speakers to
deliver their presentations live and
indeed we have people patching in from
various corners of the world but we've
made provisions to ensure that we can go
ahead if the vagaries of internet prove
particularly challenging.
So thank you all very much for coming I'm going to
end my share now and I'm going to invite
our first speaker Preeti Kathuria to
share her screen and then I will
introduce our first panel
So Preeti Kathuria comes to us from
Vasant Valley School in New Delhi.
Preeti is an educator and researcher and
specializes in contemporary art.
She holds two postgraduate degrees in
History of Art from the National Museum
Institute in New Delhi and in Curating
Contemporary Art from the Royal College
of Art, London. She has worked as
assistant editor of contemporary art
with the Lalit Kala Akademi, the
National Academy of Art in New Delhi.
She has been writing on
contemporary art for various journals
and magazines.
Besides critical writing and editorial work
she has taught visual art at
several universities and colleges in India.
Currently she is a visual art
educator at the Vasant Valley School in
New Delhi.
So Preeti, over to you.
Thank you very much Theo, thanks a lot for this lovely introduction. 
Hello everyone, thank you
so much for inviting me. I'm humbled and
pleased to be a part of this forum.
I think Theo has given us a wonderful
introduction to start this conference.
My research is based on the activism and
response of contemporary artists on
the rural distress in India. I'd like to
begin my presentation with one of the
most iconic works of the 20th century.
I'm sure we all recognise this work,
Picasso's Guernica, which is essentially
a war painting depicting the aftermath
of the Spanish Civil War. 
The painting drew a lot of attention and the lesser
known fact is that it helped in funding
the war relief through a touring
exhibition.
I'll move to my next slide. 
Again, I'm sure
this is very familiar.
The artist activist group Guerrilla Girls who
produced art with a singular mandate to
fight sexism and racism within the art
community. 
With these two artworks, with
these two artists, I wish to set the
premise of my research. 
Art offers an infinite anthology on issues of
significance. It has a social function to
fulfill and artists have recognized and
responded to the numerous irreconcilable
problems of our times.
I would like to show how
contemporary art practices in
India have served as a catalyst for
social immediacy and knowledge
dissemination.
Indian agriculture is
heavily dependent on monsoon, on rain
and the unforeseen vagaries of nature
make the farmers extremely vulnerable to
debt traps
eventually leading to suicides, and the
three figures -  the factual figures -  are
absolutely alarming. Droughts, floods all
add up to rural distress.
Debt traps,
lack of institutional credit, create a
vicious cycle of increasing poverty.
Then there is land fragmentation,  rising
costs
and highly exploitative intermediaries. 
Climate crisis therefore is a major
contributor to rural suffering. 
Numerous contemporary artists are getting
extremely uncomfortable with this
situation.
Through their artistic
practice, directness and reflect upon this
pernicious rural situation.
The first artists that I am going to talk about today is Aditi Bhattad. 
She is a farmer's daughter
hailing from a village in
Madhya Pradesh. This is a performance by
Aditi titled 'Are You Nero's Guests?'
The title is suggestive of Nero
the ancient Roman Emperor who
is believed to host lavish parties in
his gardens and he used to burn down his
slaves, his prisoners, alive in order to
illuminate the party. The title therefore
suggests that Nero's cruelty and
the callous neglect and attitude of the
guests. Through this performance Aditi
wishes to confront people with the
genocide of farmers taking place and the
indifference of the urban society. 
As you all see there is a number that is
sunburnt on her back. When she sat there
during the performance this number was
reflecting on her back which is actually
the official number of farmer suicides
in India from 1995 to 2015. Aditi sat
there and distributed postcards and
indigenous seeds embedded in it and the
postcards carried names of farmers who
committed suicides in the Verada
district of Maharashtra.
The other artists that I'm going to talk
about is Shweta Bhattad. She built up a
beautiful community art project that was
titled 'I Have a Dream'. It was a global
farming initiative with an aim to draw
attention to farming practices.
It was a collaboration between artists and
farmers to sew fields and spelling out
the word 'I have a dream' in their native
language.
It started in 2014 from Vancouver.
Artists from around 27 countries
participated in this project and created
farm art in their fields and balconies and gardens.
Shweta used art to
empower communities through farming.
The slide that you are seeing -  this was done in Rajasthan, in India.
In continuation to
the previous project, Shweta did a crop
art work in 2016. 
Spread over 7,200 square feet
of land Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh.
This project was created over a period
of three months. The art work carried a
message for the prime minister to
encourage the youth to become farmers:
'Dear Prime Minister, please grow in India'.
A campaign that the peon launched called
'Make in India', in sync with that Shweta
wanted one more campaign
The two artists that I have just spoken
about are actually two sisters,  Shweta and Aditi.
They run another project together which is called the gram art project.
It is the collecting of artists,
farmers who come together in a village
and are trying to make it sustainable to
live in a village, both socially and
ecologically. They conduct performances
exhibitions, residencies, community workshops
etcetera to challenge the social
milleu of the village through art and culture.
One of the projects done by
Gram Art was in 2019. They hosted an
evening of celebration in Delhi. It was
titled 'Climatical or Political?'
It was an evening of performances, artworks and dinner. 
The aim was to make the urban
consumer aware about food security and
increase the public debate on
agricultural issues. Using their farm
produce they hosted an evening to sell
food made from both successful and
failed harvest, edible and non-edible
artworks and performances. It was all
aimed at making the guests feel the
burden of hunger.
The artworks that were showcased were
all made during the residencies hosted by
the Gram Art Project. At the end of the
three hour performance they raised a
bill for the audience -  which you can see
on your screen right now -  and the bill
was very interesting. It said 'thank you
for joining us for the celebrations.
During these three hours the society has
incurred a cost of...' and it lists out
some very relevant things: lives of five
farmers, livelihoods of two hundred and
fifty farmers, a loss of agricultural land and so forth. So the idea of the
project was to raise awareness. The idea
was to collaborate, communicate and
question the health of the agrarian
centre.
The other artist I'm going to
talk about today is Kota Neelima.
She's a researcher, author, political
commentator. Her work focuses on women
farmers and farmer suicides.
Her solo exhibition 'The Nature of Things: Death and Dualism in Indian Villages'
was an effort to bring the rural distress to
the fore and assist the families of
farmers who committed suicide through
the sale proceeds of the art work.
Her paintings and photographs are inspired
by rural life, landscape and the deep crisis
in the Indian villages.
Also being an author she writes extensively on
water distress. One of her books 'Shoes of
the Dead' is a realistic narration of a
farmers's despair and eventual collapse.
The book will soon be made into a film.
Another extremely relevant artist duo
that I wish to talk about is to Thukral and Tagra.
They work across a range of media
including painting, sculpture,
installation, interactive games,
performance and design. Hailing from Punjab
the duo attempted to grow the
agrarian crisis through two exhibitions
shown last year. 'Bread, Circuses and I' was
the title of one of them and the other
exhibition was titled 'Farmer is a
Wrestler'. As you can see in this image
where he has created a game of playing
cards and the farmer is shown wrestling
both as a sport and in real life. 
The metaphor of a wrestler is employed to
examine the ongoing struggle of the
farmers. The battle of survival against
so many odds. 
The viewer confronts these exhibitions and sees numerous
distress equations designed by the artist in,
pursuit of empathy and social knowledge.
Distress is shown through mathematical
symbols. It reflects the complicated
crisis that seems very difficult to
resolve. One of the most powerful works
was Surjeet Singh. If you look at this
slide there is a larger artwork in the
center. That is the film on Surjeet
Singh. It's a twenty seven minute video
loop which is surrounded by smaller
artworks which are titled 'Aftermath'.
They are put together in a single room and
there is a bench for the viewer to sit
and absorb the reality. Surjeet Singh is a
50 year old man who has been reporting
farmer suicides for over 130 villages in
a district of Punjab.
Over a span of 10 years he met 2,000
families of the deceased farmers to help
them fill out the application form of
their demise.
And 'Aftermath' as you see on
your screens right now, these are 30 A4
size ink papers which surround the Surjeet Singh
video. These pages carry reports
on agrarian crises including the
Swaminathan Commission report. It was
actually a report that was made by the
government to serve and save the farmers.
It was in 2004 that MS Swaminathan
was made the chairman of the
National Commission on farmers.
So what we see is the report papers seem to be
blotted with black ink but in reality it
is not ink, it is the residue of a
pesticide spray machine.
Every 30 minutes, three seconds of pesticide spray is done.
This was a performative piece referring
to 30 minutes as the average time for
one farmer suicide in the country,
Extremely relevant and impactful works
of Thukral and Tagra, and even more
profound is the idea behind this
activism. According to Thukral and Tagra,
they say 'we don't expect to solve these
issues but we try to deliver knowledge
and hope to raise public awareness through an
empathetic approach'.
To conclude my presentation I'd like to
say that art might not have a solution
for these complex problems but it
certainly provides a voice, a platform, to
the repressed, a discourse to spread
awareness and a very critical
perspective to engage, empathize, and act. 
I'd also like to add a quote by
Steven Pressfield:  'The Warrior and the Artist
live by the same code of necessity, which
dictates that the battle must be fought
anew everyday'. So just going back to
where I started, Guernica, 
the battle is being fought and
here the frontline Warriors are the
contemporary artists who through
modalities of collaboration,
communication, they are making an indelible
mark in reconfiguring this war. 
Thank you very much.
A writer, activist
and student at the University of
Edinburgh in the Department of Art History
her dissertation explores queer
theory's impacts on art spaces in the
Anthropocene. She is a committee member
of her University's Amnesty International Society
where she has spoken on ethical practice in activism
and journalism and photojournalism,
excuse me, and a founding member of
The Rattle Cap, a student newspaper of
making radical writing accessible and
her paper for the first half of what I
think should be a very interesting panel indeed
is titled 'Defining the Body:
Climate Art and Queer Ecology'.
Over to you Lucy.
Thanks Theo and and thank you so
much to the organizers of this event and
our interpreters and everyone for coming
even in such strange times.
As Theo mentioned I've been an activist
for longer than I've been an art
history student and I'm going to be
talking about activist art specifically
through the lens of a recent Olafur Eliasson
 exhibition and the controversy
that surrounded it. 
Art can provide an exciting and diverse vehicle for
activism but it also brings challenges
with regards to ethics and accessibility.
This presentation concerns climate art
that only interacts with a limited
definition of the human body. 
In this case it's that which renders itself
physically inaccessible for wheelchair users. 
The deeper implications of this
problem will be explored through queer
ecology, an outpost of queer theory
centered on environmentalism, to call for
a destabilizing of the so called nature
and natural body that artworks such as
these risk advocating for and some
possible solutions to this problem.
I want to begin with an introduction to
'In Real Life' which was a survey of Olafur Eliasson work exhibited at the
Tate Modern in London in 2019.
Olafur Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic artist
and a large amount of his work
deals with and interacts with the
climate crisis. His works seek to
engage the viewer with their environment
on a personal level and does so by
bringing phenomena so large as melting
ice caps and changing landscapes to a
thinkable, tangible level.
'In Real Life'
consists of 30-plus artworks many of
which transform spaces or
fill entire rooms with immersive experiences. 
'Moss Wall' is a living wall
of lichen to be touched.
Looking through
this 'Untitled Orb' reveals the distorted
faces of other gallery viewers and 'How
do we live together' is a mirrored
ceiling connecting an arc that can be
sat on, laid beneath or stepped over.
The viewer is encouraged to interact both with the artworks and
with each other. Eliasson has previously
referred his viewers as co-producers,
highlighting the extent to which his
works' meaning rely on their
participation. 
The climate conscious agenda of this exhibition is pushed
through both immersive artwork and
combined with real-world action.
The final room of the exhibition called
'Expanded Studio' includes real-world ways
to tackle climate change including
Eliasson's own solar power initiative and
the ways his studio are making moves to
combat climate change, as well as further
opportunities for audience interaction.
The climate crisis is an issue that will
necessarily affect everyone and art that
seeks to combat it bears a certain
responsibility to activate everyone or
at least as many people as possible, as
combating it will be a global effort.
There are methods that could be explored
to widen an audience and Eliasson attempts a few. 
The use of sense perception,
a key part of his entire body
of work, removes any potentially elitist
barrier that might require a prior
background or education to understand
the piece of art. No prior knowledge is
required here, only the viewers own body
as they navigate the gallery space. 
To quote from some of his writing that
reflects this: 'one of the great
challenges today is that we often feel
untouched by the problems of others and
by global issues like climate change,
even when we could easily use something
to help. This is where art can make a
difference. Art does not show people
what to do, yet engaging with a good
work of art can connect you to your
senses, body, and mind. It can make the
world felt. 'In Real Life' as a body of
work seems to be the perfect example of
wider viewership. It distils the
artwork into multi sense perception
given climate art a platform that can be
accessed by everyone. The works aren't
reliant on an understanding of science
or theory but on
base-level human perception. In theory,
this is highly effective activism and
one that is taking a step towards a
universally accessible viewership.
Unfortunately this perceived
universality was not for everyone.
This is 'Your spiral view' and it was in the
penultimate room of the exhibition.
The work is an enormous metal spiral and
it's entered by steps up to a platform.
Once inside the viewer experiences a
kaleidoscope of reflected light and
metal in a complete transformation of
the space around them. This piece was made
in 2002 but has been exhibited many
times since. In the past it's been used
to a specific end. Previously it's been
placed at the entrances to exhibitions
where it transports the viewer through
this kaleidoscopic effect into the
constructed and immersive spaces of his
exhibitions thus functioning as a bridge
both physically and metaphorically.
Within 'In Real Life' after passing
through 'Your spiral view' the viewer
reaches the final room of the exhibition,
'Expanded Studio' which includes the
actions for the real world,
ideas for real change in real life with
the artwork representing the move from
gallery space to world of activism.
However 'Your spiral view' became the
center of controversy in April when
journalist Ciara O'Connor visited the
exhibition and as a wheelchair user
requested ramp access to the work.
She was denied access to a ramp and later
documented her experience on Twitter.
Eliasson personally responded, noting
that he was in discussions with the Tate
about making this work accessible while
still acknowledging its original shape.
However ultimately it was decided that
nothing could be done. Among other
reasons this was an old art work and
its structure was too narrow to allow a
wheelchair even with a ramp.
This is a body of work which
utilized sense perception in an attempt
to broaden its viewership but in
doing so neglected to consider its
further implications and the viewers it
would isolate. As O'Connor notes anyone
who's ever looked at the outside of a
kaleidoscope will know it somewhat misses
the point. I've used this artwork as a
key example because what is
representative of the transition from
viewership to activism has been made
inaccessible. But it wasn't the only
inaccessible piece in the exhibition. The
orb that was placed into the wall could
only be reached from standing height and
'How do we live together?' had to be
stepped over to reach the other side of
the room. By blocking this transition to
activism, and access to other works
within the exhibition, a precedent has
been set which allowed disability to be
treated as an isolated phenomenon and
something that doesn't fit with the norm.
A binary has been created between those
who are able to experience the artwork
and those who aren't.
This is ableism within climate art.
These artworks privilege the
able-bodied granting them exclusive
access not only to an understanding of
the body of work as a homogeneous whole
but also of the transition to activism.
However even if a ramp had been provided
for O'Connor
issues remain. The visions of these
artworks were clearly not designed for
certain types of body and the further
implications of this will be examined.
These objects and spaces are a
distillation of the natural world into
something that is small enough to fit in
the gallery space. But within this
'natural' is a very limited definition of
body.
I just want to take a moment here and give a background
to queer theory for those who might not
be familiar. The breadth of the term
queer is reflected in what it covers.
On a basic level it's the questioning and
destabilizing of gender, bodies, and sex
across academic fields, opening up wider
discussions of binaries within existing
norms and values. In light of this queer
ecology applies these methods and
strategies to nature and
environmentalism. A key area that we'll
be focusing on is a destabilization of
what is seen as natural and unnatural.
The use of these have at various points
in history reduced sexual behaviors to
just reproduction thus labelling
homosexuality or queerness as unnatural.
Queer ecology dismantles the rigidity of
binaries within sex and identity and
calls for a rethinking of them within
environmental politics and the art.
In this context it's going to provide methods
for the destabilization of ableism in
climate art.
By considering works that
utilize sensoral immersion as, in essence,
individual natures, we can hold them up
to queer ecology and its methods in
dismantling the binaries and subsequent
exclusions that exist.
Connections between queer theory and disability
studies have been made before.
Often based on the fact that just as
discrimination has allowed able-bodiedness
to be seen as the default, with
disability as an orbiting outlier,
heterosexuality is seen as the norm, with
queerness existing as an alternative.
In a TEDx talk in 2016
titled 'The earth is not your mother'
Alex Johnson accesses the negative effects on
activism and attitudes toward
sustainable living that the linguistic
trope 'Mother Earth' carries.
It plays to the negatives of a gender
binary that labels mothers as something
vulnerable or something needing to be
protected and applies it to something
that is non-human. 
Granted this non-human object,
Earth, is home to a wide array of species
but none except our own have evolved the
same perception of gender that we have.
Applying such a binary to an ecosystem
achieves very little and risks excluding
those who don't conform to it.
The steps leading up to 'Your Spiral View'  created a
similarly binary message. By interacting
only with a limited definition of the
human body wheelchair users were
excluded and labeled as belonging beyond
the norm. Labeling the Earth as mother
sets a precedent for treating genders
differently within climate activism.
inaccessible artworks set a precedent
for treating people differently.
To quote directly and circle back to our specific
issue 'We cannot afford any barrier that
separates people from taking
responsibility to manage the future and to shape it'.
Activism can rarely afford
to cut corners with regards to limiting viewership.
Sensual immersive artworks
can dismantle the potential elitist
barriers of prior knowledge but that
means nothing if they are replaced by
barriers of physical inaccessibility.
And what about the nature that exists
beyond those barriers and within the
artwork? In 'Heteronormativity without
Nature' Jonathan Gray criticizes a view
of the natural. This view is one that
doesn't include queerness, labeling it as
unnatural. At the same time as there is a
call for a return to nature for the
health of the planet there was the
argument of heterosexuality being the
only natural. Gray ask the question
'How are queers to advocate for a nature that,
according to heteronormativity, either
does not include us or we should rise
above?' Due to the universal scope of
climate change it's easy to rephrase
this question.
How can anyone advocate for a nature
that doesn't include them and why should they?
Gray calls for a destabilization of this
concept of nature. There is no reason
that queer people should be excluded
from acting against climate change but a
heteronormative narrative within
environmentalism allowed them to be
sidelined and this is not a nature that
should be being advocated for. Within the
constructed nature of its spaces,
'In Real Life' had the opportunity to
encourage advocacy for a nature that
accepts diversity. With the barrier of
prior knowledge dismantled, the
opportunity to spur people to activism
regardless of background or education
was made available. Instead, yes, the
distillation of phenomena to a central
level collapsed space, creating arenas in
which a simple, personal relationship can
be had with an environment, but that
relationship is exclusive and its
definition of a natural body is limited.
These spaces are distilled, individual
natures in their own right, but the body
it defines being part of its constructed
natural environment is both narrow and
rigid. There is little or no room for
movement of interpretation. It's
understanding depends on their body
being able to interact with it. 
Within the nature of Eliasson's spaces its
disability that is deemed unnatural. The
use of a wheelchair lies outside the
space's definition of body and wheelchair
users are sidelined from its activism.
This begs the question, why do norms of both
heteronormativity and able-bodiedness
retain such a hold on society and
environmentalism. Both are highly
constructed and idealized. Robert
McRuer describes both as fetishized,
products of historical processes that
help secure both heterosexuality and
able-bodiedness as the natural and the
norm.
The institutions In our culture that produced and secure a heterosexual identity also work to secure
an able-bodied identity, literally constructing a
world that always and everywhere
privileges very narrow conceptions of ability. 
 Climate art that relies on an
able body fetishizes it. It associates
able-bodiedness with the correct way
to interact with an environment in a way
that is neither reflective of the true
diversities of human bodies or of a
world that should be advocated for.
In truth there is no correct nor incorrect
way to inhabit space
Neither sexuality nor the body are
monolithic. These are at best
umbrella terms under which a vast
diversity of bodies exist. A notion of a
specific body being natural is a notion
that must be destabilized. Queer ecology
has Illustrated problems with and
methods to criticize the use of the
gender binary. A similar attack must be
taken to combat what is clearly ableism
in climate art. McRuer identified
the complex and historical processes
helping to secure both 
heterosexual and able-bodied identities
as the norm which must be dismantled. But
this must be done while still allowing
immerseive climate art to actually work.
As climate art has developed over the
past few years various psychological
studies have been conducted in an
attempt to pin down what actually makes
good climate art. A 2019 study at ArtCop21
assessed the cognitive responses of
audience members to a series of climate
based artworks assigned to different
headings. The conclusion was that the
most engaging artwork for the audience
was the group that presented 'The Awesome Solution',
or beautiful and colorful
depictions of sublime nature and
solutions to environmental problems. The
study measures good on the intentions
towards real action of the viewers after
experiencing the artwork. In other words
artwork that help make positive
changes in real life. Immersive and
sensory artworks achieved this well,
relying on the captivating
nature of the senses to inspire awe. So
how can this translate into the world of activism?
Controversy aside 'In Real Life'
presented viewers with immersive
experiences and ways to combat the
climate crisis in real life. Not all of
the artworks that were included were
inaccessible but it's the inclusion of
some that prevent the exhibition being
understood as a homogeneous whole.
The works are immersive and politically
activated but inaccessibility damages
their effectiveness. The intention of
this paper is not to critique only the
works of Olafur Eliasson but any that
utilize immersion at the expense of an
accessibility. Opening up the
conversations that will allow methods of
activism to be constructively challenged
will help build awareness of these
issues. In this case I've used queer
ecology to illustrate the dangers of
constructing an environment that is
dependent on binaries but also to
demonstrate a path of destabilization
that climate art can benefit from.
Destabilization requires a widened
definition of body. Progressions and
technology have allowed for immersive
art to expand beyond something very much
tied into the physical. Video and
projection can provide an immersive
sensory experience and virtual reality
can construct spaces to be navigated
without the viewer having to move
Artworks utilizing these techniques have
already found a place within activism
'Beware of the Dandelions' by Complex
Movements encourages advocacy for social
justice through multimedia storytelling.
Interestingly enough Eliasson has been
using lockdown to develop 'Earth Speaker'
which launches next week and is
an augmented reality app aimed at
helping children to personify their
environment.
Truly destabilizing ableism
within climate art requires more than
just to turn towards something like
virtual reality. It also requires a
rejection of artworks that define the
body in such a way.
If an exhibition claims activist status
and a broadened viewership it cannot
interact only with a select group of
people. Even if a move away from this
occurs, ongoing and open conversations
about activist artwork's accessibility
must be had in order to ensure that they
remain accessible regardless of medium.
Just to end with the timely note, the
world that we're currently locked down
in well illustrates the violence of
systematic discrimination that exists
within our societies. Whether it's those
who are more exposed to coronavirus or
those who suffer at the hands of racist
police brutality or those who will be
disproportionately affected by climate
change, the times that we're living in
are no great equalizer. 
Now more than ever
climate art needs to take responsibility
and actively fight for the inclusion of all bodies.
The destabilization illustrated
by queer ecology can provide a pathway
to this, but accessibility within
activism will need to remain an ongoing
conversation and one that requires
cooperation of both institution and individual.
Thank you.
Thank you so much Lucy. .
This paper is concerned with forms of open
subjectivity and how considerations of
atmosphere have affected modes of
engagement. In particular, I seek to
establish the manner in which an open
subjectivity has featured in recent
discourses concerning both ecological
participation -  or modes of being in the
world - and practices of participation in
contemporary art. Here I explore a
celebrated atmospheric artwork
Olafur Eliasson's 'The Weather Project' which is
both an emblem of institutionalized
installation art and has been conceived
as developing an ecological awareness.
I argue that there are three distinct
approaches to interpreting the
atmosphere and accompanying open
subjectivity of 'The Weather Project.
The first, taking into account the site of
the work, concerns 'The Weather Project's'
public address and the manner in which
it refigures ideas of participatory art.
The second, following the theme of
'The Weather Project', concerns an
ecological address and the comparative
appearance of open subjectivity in
recent ecological thinking.
The third and final use of atmosphere
concerns the commercial enterprise of
'The Weather Project' and is a
demonstration of the ease with which
open subjectivity can be co-opted to
commercial ends.
Therefore after an introduction to 'The Weather Project'
this paper is structured into three sections
which consider each of these approaches.
I conclude by exploring the frictions
produced by these three readings which
sit uncomfortably together. I have by no
means found an answer to the question of
open subjectivity in 'The Weather Project'.
Rather I hope that by spending time
separating the manners in which it
functions I can reclaim a critical
interest in the work and can illuminate
the benefits and shortcomings of the
cross-pollination between ecological and
artistic approaches to participation,
engagement and subjectivity.
Now-iconic, 'The Weather Project' was a large-scale
installation created for Tate Modern's
Turbine Hall.
Appearing as a giant sun, suspended in
the hall, it blazed throughout the grey
London winter of 2003-4, its light
attracting a record-breaking 2 million visitors
over its six-month run. 
The work was the fourth installment in the
Unilever-sponsored Turbine Hall series, an
annual commission for a unique art work
to engage with the vast post-industrial
space. Described as a covered street Tate
are keen to try to establish the Turbine
Hall as a public space, despite its
reliance upon corporate sponsorship. 
The works in the series all demonstrate some
engagement with contemporary theories on the
formation or maintenance of a public.
Encouraged by architecture which
facilitates surveillance, observation is
a constant theme across the series. 
'The Weather Project' radically altered the
architecture of the Turbine Hall,
creating an alternative artificial
atmosphere. There were three central
elements to Eliasson's installation:
light, mist and mirrors. 200 bulbs were arranged
on a semi circular frame which was
attached high up to the back wall of the
Turbine Hall. In front of them was placed
a screen to diffuse their glow.
These were mono-frequency lights, the type
generally used in the street lamps. They
emit light at such a narrow frequency
that colours
other than yellow and black are invisible.
The straight top edge of the
semicircle of lamps abutted the mirrors
which Eliasson had installed across the
entirety of the Turbine Hall ceiling
thus creating the effect of a full
circle of orange-ish light, akin to a
setting sun.
The mirrors, visually
doubling the volume of the Hall,
reflected everything in it, including
visitors. Looking up they could identify
themselves or surreptitiously watch
their fellow visitors. The reflected glow
was complemented by the mist machines Eliasson also installed around the Hall
which released a vapor of sugar water
that slowly gathered and dissipated in
the manner of clouds. The mist not only
added to the impression of a hazy sunset
but changed the quality of air in the
Hall, deadening sound, blurring reflections
and going some way to soften the
dominating industrial walls.
As you can see, this is a contemporary view of the Turbine Hall.
The windows and skylights of the Turbine
Hall had been sealed to prohibit the
actual weather in London from altering
the light levels inside the gallery.
Although there was a gradation to light
intensity the glow filled the entire
Hall so visitors were communally
bathed in light as soon as they entered.
Because the mirrors reflected everything
museum paraphernalia such as signage and
donation boxes had to be removed from
the Turbine Hall, further alienating the
space from its everyday function.
The only place to observe the Hall without
being reflected were the observation
boxes on each level of the Boiler House Gallery.
In the Hall, reflections were
clear enough to pick out individuals
although because of the two-tone colours
this identification of self or other was
often assisted by bodily movement -  waving,
running, twirling, holding hands to create
reflected patterns or spell out words.
Although there was no temperature
control, the yellow glow 
encouraged visitors to linger, often
sitting on the floor appearing to bask
under the sun. One critic describes the
scene as like a crowd on an
artificial beach.
According to Tate minimal control was
exerted by security.
People came in to eat their lunch, they fell
asleep, had picnics with friends, opened
bottles of champagne, did yoga. The front
of house manager only remembers having
to intervene once to disrupt an overly
amorous couple.
Although the light, mist
and mirrors created a compellingly
immersive atmosphere there was no
concealment in the mechanics of its
production. Standing at the back wall of
the Turbine Hall visitors could look up
and clearly see the lamps and their
wiring.
Similarly the reverse structure of the
mirrors was visible from the top floor
of the museum. The mist machines, mostly
located around the bridge area, were out
of reach but obvious and unhidden.
Revealing the construction of his
illusions or what he calls the mediation
was an important part of Eliasson's
statement about 'The Weather Project'.
It is a technique he regularly employs
in his work to counter what he sees as
the domination of the visual perception.
In making obvious the constructions
Eliasson hopes to make apparent the hidden
operations - physical and metaphorical -
which structure acts of viewing,
promoting an increased self-awareness.
As such he intends to create what he
calls a 'looped participation' or
participation where there is an
evaluation of itself as participation.
Such reflexivity is no novel idea in
contemporary art. My particular concern
here however is with Eliasson's
simultaneous endeavor to foster looped
participation and simulate a
meteorological atmosphere.
Installing the mirrored ceiling alone into the Turbine
Hall would have also encouraged a looped
participation in the viewing of your own
and other's bodies in action.
But the creation of the artificial atmosphere
turns our attention to the environment.
As such, Eliasson's invocation of the
weather is of particular significance to
his concept of participation. Atmosphere,
a nebulous term in itself, is a holding
environment but is also used to describe
the sense of a place. It is both external
to and also affected by the subject. As
such an atmosphere is an in-between
phenomenon and attention to
atmosphere can allow the refiguration
of a subject of identification. In this
way Eliasson's use of an atmosphere
encourages an open subjectivity where, in a levelling
of the subject-centered hierarchy, the
interaction of subject and surroundings
is reappraised. As curator and writer
Daniel Birnbaum summarized, 'The Weather Project'
complicates where the 'you' begins
and ends.
As mentioned in the
introduction the atmosphere of 'The
Weather Project' and the open subjectivity
it encourages can be understood in three
separate contexts.
The first concerns the
idea of participation as it has
developed in contemporary art as a
practice centered within specifically
social structures. Ignited by Guy Debord's
critique of the society of the spectacle,
ideas of engagement tend to have relied
on a realization of the subject - an
activation of either body or mind or both
More recently the concept of the
activated viewer has expanded into ideas
of an activated and engaged community.
Miwon Kwon has done much to resituate
the notion of site in terms of community but
it is a redefinition which still
maintains a subject-centred hierarchy
prioritizing relationships between
subjects without account of the
environment that sustains them.
In light of such descriptions of participation
'The Weather Project' is markedly
different. On the one hand it displays
many aspects which are assertively
spectacular: the scale, dominance and
unchangability of the work let alone
the manner in which people are
transfixed by it. On the other hand
whatever participation occurs within the
work builds no lasting community, not
only because of the fleeting nature of
the visitors but because
there is little interaction encouraged between
visitors which is not based on observation.
Against these forms of
participation open subjectivity
encourages a here-and-now-ness which
although undoubtedly bringing forth a
new set of problems can offer a radical
chance to inject environmental influence
into social relations. The construction
of a public in 'The Weather Project' is
affected by its atmosphere as well as
its visitors. Although the elemental
materials and sublime scales might link
'The Weather Project' to a romantic
tradition, the encouraged open
subjectivity opposes the Enlightenment
view of human subjects as distinct from
and in a relationship of domination over
the environment.
The second concern of open subjectivity
in 'The Weather Project' is as an
ecological address. As we are all too
aware the atmosphere is crucial to the
ecological structure of the earth. But, as
asserted by German philosopher Gernot Boehmer,
atmospheric thinking can also be a
tool for a mode of ecological thinking.
At the time Eliasson's concern was
perhaps more institutional than
ecological but in his later career he
has certainly strengthened his
ecological emphasis and 'The Weather
Project' has been to some degree
refigured in this regard. 
This slide shows two pertinent examples of that
refigured ecological address. On the left
you can see an image from 'Ice Watch', an
installation which left glacial ice
blocks to melt outside of Tate Modern in
December 2018, and on the right is a
screenshot from last summer when the
Tate declared a climate emergency and
used an image from 'The Weather Project'
to illustrate that press release. 'The
Weather Project' did not engage in
ecological activism. Indeed there are
multiple issues around its site,
sponsorship and scale that would make
any such reading hard to countenance.
But attention to atmospheres and the
affordance of an open subjectivity have
increasingly appeared in ecological
thought since 2003-4.
The diversion away from a self-centered subject
mirrors approaches which advocate an
anti-Anthropocene manner of being in the
world.
The ecological philosopher Timothy
Morton aptly describes the recent
attention to atmosphere and its effects
on subjectivity in his 2010 book
'The Ecological Thought'. In his words quote 'we
can no longer have that reassuringly
trivial conversation about the weather
with someone in the street as a way to
break the ice or past the time. The
conversation either trails off into a
disturbingly meaningful silence or
someone mentions global warming.
The weather no longer exists as a neutral
seeming background against which events
take place', end quote.  In other words what
was previously refigured as a setting
for acts of communication, a backdrop
before which communities were built, has
muscled its way to the fore, becoming or
needing to become, a factor in how we
participate socially. 'The Weather Project'
appears as a pre-existing representation
of such as shift in attention. In 'The
Ecological Thought' Morton uses the idea
of a mesh to describe new atmospheric
relations. A radical openness where a
subject is connected to a range of other
beings and things as part of various
expansive life systems. Ideas of the mesh
of connection have become apparent in
anti-Anthropocene writings by Donna
Haraway, Anna Tsing and Jill Bennett to
name just a few.
In comparison to their real-life
examples, the artificiality of the
atmosphere of 'The Weather Project' is of note.
The fake sun, with its sugary clouds,
warm glow that holds no heat and
inability to ever set can be read as a
vision of unnatural nature, of man-made
culture. The atmosphere in the turbine
hall intentionally
excluded existing ecological atmospheres.
Although 'The Weather Projects' atmosphere
might suggest an understanding of social
participation which includes
environmental relations, these are still
socially constructed environments.
The third operation of the relationship
between atmosphere and open subjectivity
in 'The Weather Project' concerns its
commercial interest. An open subjectivity
is one that is always about to be made,
it has continual possibility. In the
contemporary attention economy, therefore,
the continual possibility afforded by an
open subjectivity can also be co-opted
as a continual time of productivity.
As apparent from the manner in which visitors
behaved while in 'The Weather Project, the
pleasant atmosphere encouraged people to
be rather than just see.
Leisure activities were brought into and
commingled with the atmosphere of the
space, producing cultural value in a
manner not dissimilar to Maurizio Lazzarato's
notion of immaterial labour.
The placid behavior of visitors seems in
direct opposition to the image of the
blazing sun which should be too big and
too close for comfort.
But it is this imageability which has
continued post-installation
to find huge commercial circulation.
Alongside the value of spending time and
spending attention is actual spending.
It is no coincidence that Tate Modern cafe
and gift shop open onto the Turbine Hall,
allowing the atmosphere to permeate into
each space. As you can see at the bottom
of this slide that light in the bottom
left-hand corner is from the gift shop.
In a similar manner attention to
atmospheres has been of considerable
interest to recent designs of commercial
spaces such as shopping malls and
airports, where the meshing of foreground
 and background is used to
seduce a subject to capitalist ends.
The three operations I have described create
certain frictions in 'The Weather Project'.
In each reading the balance of the
relationship between atmosphere and open
subjectivity has a different emphasis.
But in my opinion these shifting
balances do not destabilize the
potential of an ecological open
subjectivity nor render an attention to
atmosphere unworthwhile.
Rather like Donna Haraway's call to 'Stay With the Trouble',
closer attention to the
manipulations of atmosphere can prove
productive. Ecological modes of being in
the world which place the subject in a
mesh of connection would do well to be
aware of the value capitalism places on
controlling the attention of its
subjects. To conclude I suggest the
ecological potential of 'The Weather
Project' was the opportunity to reflect
on ideas of what participation means.
Because of the difficulties arising from
its multiple readings, the atmosphere of
'The Weather Project' remained an
in-between phenomenon, never being
allowed to fully settle into a single
comment on artistic, ecological
or commercial practices. As such the
atmosphere created a tension which kept
subjective identities open, calling
critical attention to the relationship
between subjectivity and atmosphere.
Thanks so much Grace for supplying a
pre-recording of your presentation and
being so helpful in getting that set up
so that we could continue to hear what
you had to say.
Could I invite Grace and Lucy to unmute and
to turn their videos on so that we
could have some questions. We have a
large number of them so I will try and
get through as many as possible in the
11 minutes that we have.
But I think
because you both were
talking about the same artist, I think
there's scope for, maybe for both of you to respond to each perhaps.
So the first one I wanted to go to was from Anna, which was to Lucy
but it I think could be...you, Grace, could think about this as well.
I wondered about Eliasson being a bit
ambivalent about the environment anyway.
For example his installation at Tate 'The
Weather Project' used a tremendous amount
of energy -  in a talk he said
enough for a small town although you'd
have to check the veracity of that. Also,  in an early work he was responsible
for dying six rivers green. He used a
non-toxic dye but the cloudy effect
would certainly have had a likely
detrimental impact on the ecology.
So I think that question about
ambivalence is a good place to start.
I'm sure Grace can also input to this
having done, kind of, more extensive
research on 'The Weather Project' but I
think a question like that really pivots
on whether it's the attention that
Eliasson brought to the climate issue
through works like this that outweigh
the possible environmental
negatives in that so I think it's a
question of whether the attention
brought to it was more worthy than the
possible harm and whether it's possible
to create such immersive and... I think
works that can
impact this many people without having
some impact in the environment so it's
kind of a moral question about that and
which ones worth more.
Yeah I think Lucy you're completely right that Eliasson
banks all of his ecological approach on
grabbing the attentions of his audience
and I think a really good example of
perhaps when this starts to fall apart
is his 'Ice Watch' series which was in one
of my slides with the glacial ice
melting outside the Tate, and that's
actually the third time that he's
harvested glacial ice. Which sort
of brings up that question of when the
shock value starts to become an actual problem.
Great thanks. There's a couple of
questions for Lucy which I'm going to
roll into one. So there was one from the
Democratic Society:
How does mental health fit into queer
theory and to queer ecology and then
maybe we could think about that in
relation, alongside another question
which is from Christian: I was especially
struck by your questioning of the
heteronormativity and able-bodiedness
of concepts of nature. I was wondering if
you could talk a bit more about the
queering of nature and how we can best
combat the hetronormative and
able-bodied notions of nature, especially
because they've been so powerful
historically. So mental health and nature
and how they fit into your work.
So I think to begin with mental health, whilst
that's not an area that I've
particularly focused on it definitely
does come under, especially queer theory,
and an example of this could be using
queer theory to destabilize the kind
of structure that exists over mental
health and mental health treatment in
terms of recognizing the different needs
of LGBT or queer people rather than
kind of forcing this heteronormative
narrative of ignoring the issues and
discrimination within society that might
affect queer people and in terms of
combating - I'll just find the question -
yeah combating these notions...I think
it relies very much on an ongoing
conversation that amongst other
things really requires a recognition of
these ingrained and needless uses. I
spoke about the gender binary and, so,
there are many things that could be done
I think recognition is particularly
important and with relation to my
presentation it's about recognizing the
kind of impacts of these applications of
binaries beyond queer people or
wheelchair
users, in that it will negatively
affect the activism beyond that by
isolating these communities.
So isolating those people that could be contributing
to your activism.
Thank you,  thank you so much
So we've run out of time for this
panel and I know that there are other
questions which we didn't have time to
get through but please do join me in
giving Grace and Lucy a massive thanks and
virtual round of applause for two
excellent papers and we'll be back for
the afternoon session which will start
at 3:30 British Summer Time, so that's in
35 minutes thank you so much everyone
for coming so far and I hope we can
continue these conversations in the
later afternoon session. See you at 3:30.
Good afternoon, I'm happy to be presenting
at The Courtauld Institute, at least
virtually, at their symposium on a
sustainable art practices during the
time of climate change. my name is Lisa
Reindorf, I'm an architect and an
artist focusing on climate change, in
particular rising seas and sinking cities.
I'm not an art historian as many
of you are but I'm also an educator and
a writer on art and environment. This
presentation will focus on some ideas
about sustainable art and show some
examples by well-known artists as well
as some lesser-known artists. It's a very
broad topic so we'll be zigzagging
between different art history eras and
artists and talking about the ideas of
sustainable art.
Conscientious artists are concerned with
environmental and global issues as are
many of the other members of the art
world such as the curators, historians,
dealers, gallerists and collectors etc.
Indeed, much of contemporary art deals
with issues like these very topics of
environment and global issues. 
But how can our practice reconcile with
environmental aims? That is what we're
going to be focusing on.
But what are we
talking about when we say sustainable
art? A simple definition of sustainable
art for the purposes of this
presentation is as follows:
Artworks are defined as sustainable if they made
through processes that are not using up
resources and do no damage to the
environment or produce products that are
detrimental. These art creations and the
ways they are made often examine
environmental degradation and the
results of climate change.
so let's start with the art market process, because
that's actually key to understanding the
issues that are
confronting sustainable art.
Generally, as you all know, art moves through a market
in which art is bought and sold, such as
art fairs,  museums, galleries etc. It
requires a work of art and a buyer and
often an intermediary agent. While these
art objects are often beautiful and
often meaningful and provide an income,
this business model consumes resources
and puts more material into the world, so
it's kind of a quandary.
Sustainable art entails examining or upending this
traditional model on how art enters the
world and coming up with some new ideas
of what constitutes an art product, how
the art product is produced and how it
is presented to the world.
So we'll start with some basic ideas of art that's
sustainable in its production and that
is the use of natural materials. Making
art from nature involves utilizing
various elements such as leaves, sticks,
stones, bones, water etc in a creative way
to make a new art object and the
resulting artwork often makes a
statement about nature and humanity's
relationship to nature.
Here, Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira plays with
massive tree trunks. Using abandoned
pieces of wood that he gathered and
recycled from both the countryside and
urban areas in Brazil, he twists raw
materials into site-specific
installations. Oliveira creates organic
forms that swirl around rigid
poles or creep up walls effortlessly, 
projecting the illusion that nature and
construction are intertwined.
And here's another artist who uses natural
materials, in this case feathers. Artist
Chris Maynard combines biology and
ecology into his artworks and they are
made from feathers that are ethically
sourced from private aviaries and zoos
He uses only those that are shed or
discarded by birds, that are naturally
recycled into his art. And we can also
produce sustainable art materials that
are biodegradable.
I experimented with some of this myself
working with an artist who dyes fabric
that are biodegradable materials,
actually biodegradable dyes.
So we experimented with creating paints
distilled from indigo, curry, blackberries
cayenne, turmeric, kind of everything and the
kitchen sink and chlorophyll. All sorts
of plant-based materials and spices and
then I use seaweed to thicken it.
Now it actually worked quite well in the
artwork but the problem is that being
biodegradable it would disintegrate so
it's an ephemeral piece of art.
Another  approach is art that's recyclable or
reconfigurable. Korean artist Seok Hyun is
an example of an international artist
whose work is at intersection between
art, social science and ecological
engineering. Here is his installations
'Super-Natural' at Boston's Museum of Fine
Arts and it's made from recyclable green - colored
plastic products that are
recycled to create a green landscape.
Another example of gathering and reusing
materials is this enormous piece 'Plastic Bags'
by Cameroon artist Pascale Marthine Tayou. I think this installation
is quite stunning.
It's at the Museum of Contemporary Art of
Rome and it's made of nothing but
recycled plastic bags and stands nearly
10 meters tall.
Now these recycled materials can also be reused. 
 An example of this is artist
Vanessa Enriquez. I actually met her at an 
international fellowship that we were
both on last year. She's born in Mexico
and now lives and practices in Berlin
and she creates these three-dimensional
drawings using recycled magnetic tape.
Those of you might remember old VCR tape,
that's what she uses.
These geometric  structures are meticulously assembled
by her in an installation and architectural
setting and then they're taken down and
dismantled and repacked for reuse in
another installation.
Now there's another mode of sustainable
art practices and that's time-based art
such as video art or art that's produced
digitally. I'm sure you all know many
contemporary practitioners. One that I
show here is artist Tommy Hartung based
in New York City.
He's an animator whose work employs
homemade means and materials that he
uses to create kind of science fiction
docudrama and invented landscapes and
imaginative narratives.
They're quite stunning as well.
And then here's another art type that's
sustainable which is artists performance,
where the person and their actions
is actually the art. The most well known
practitioner of course is Marina
Abramovic, she's a Serbian artist known
for her vanguard pieces that use her
body both as subject and vehicle.
Here she sits across from a participant -  in this
photo it's her long-term partner -  in the
art performance 'The Artist is Present'
which was performed over several months
at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
And another sustainable art practice,
well-known, is land art. This is an approach
that has been in practice for several
decades and is exemplified by
practitioners such as Andrew Goldsworthy.
As most of you know in the second half
of the last century, artists began
exploring conceptual ways of creating
art with their environment. Part of the
motivation for this was to work outside
the confines of an increasingly
commercialized art market and to make
works that couldn't really be
commodified as objects and many of these
artists were inspired by the growing
ecology movement. So they use common
materials such as wood, earth, sand and
stones and water. They created enormous
artworks that were made without
compromising the environment.
The image here is the well-known 'Spiral Jetty'
by Robert Smithson.
An offshoot of modern land art is land
art that has an actual ecological
purpose and Bavarian artist Nils-Udo
exemplifies this approach. He works
directly with nature to create really
stunning site-specific works of art that
celebrate the beauty of the land. He uses
found berries, leaves, branches, flower blossoms
and transforms them into 
really poetic and evocative pieces.
his motto is 'to draw with flowers, to paint
with clouds, to write with water'.
Nils-Udo says by installing paintings or
integrating them into more complex
installations -  now  I said paintings but
he meant plantings but they are actually
kind of painting with plants -  the work is
literally implanted into nature.
As a part of nature the work lives and passes
away in the rhythm of the seasons,
so it kind of evolves over time as nature does. 
Now here's a really interesting
modern variation on land art which is a
combination of land art and activism and
also a commentary on climate change
which we're dealing with today.
Artist Eve Mosher is an American artist who
lives and works in New York City and
she's best known for her public art
installation 'High Waterline' which
premiered in New York City in 2007. She
maps thick blue chalk lines directly on
to the streets, sidewalks, parks. 
The line of flood zones.
Now she uses these government maps
from NASA and satellite maps and
scientific data to determine where the
high-water line will be as sea levels
rise in various different urban areas.
She's done this like in New York,
Philadelphia, Miami and people who saw
her laying down the chalk in their
neighborhoods would ask her or her
workers what they were doing and then
conversations about climate change would follow. 
In the photo above you can see
flooding as a result of Hurricane Sandy
in New York City, where the flood
actually surpassed where she had written
down and laid down the chalk marks.
The image below shows Miami which is
simultaneously sinking and
flooding and she did a high tide water
mark project there as well, marking where
the flood zone would be. So this type of
art combines science data, community action,
and results in a sustainable art
practice which is art as activism.
Which brings me to another type of sustainable
art, where artists use their platform as
an advocate on issues such as gender,
race, environment and land use.
And they do so by actions such as educating on
climate change, performance on violence,
performing gardens and other types of
activism.
Here Deana Kolenčíková is a
Slovakian artist who's also an activist.
She intervenes in urban cities to bring -
urban settings that is -  to bring
attention to real estate and land use.
One of her projects repurposed a large
sign which she painted with 'a louer' - to rent -
and rolled out in front of
municipal buildings
as a commentary on commercialization.
And here artist Ayana Evans makes a
performance using her own body to help
audiences understand what black women
often face. Her performances address
issues of gender and race relations.
Now we've seen a lot of examples of 
sustainable art practices, recyclable art,
reconfigurable art, land art,
performance art and art is activism.
But, if an artist affects a temporary
creation or performance piece,  is there
an art product that can be monetized and
if not how would the artists and the
venues support themselves from their
artwork? And here is the big challenge of
truly sustainable art, and here are some
ideas on how we can address that challenge.
Art educates, it heals and
inspires and it connects the communities
that the artists serve. If we want to
shift from art as predominantly
commodity, to one of ecological
sustainability, then artists and venues
need to be supported and a much greater
investment in the arts is needed.
So this could take the form of commissions,
sponsorships, grants and events but at a
much larger scale than we do currently.
Here's an example, 'WaterFire'. It's a
public art event conceived by artist
Barnaby Evans of Providence, Rhode Island.
It takes place in urban water ways and
involves music, performances, ceremonial
bonfires, boats and rituals. It actually
became a catalyst for revitalization of
the entire urban waterfront. Events are
now supported by grants and have
multiple partnerships with social
services, education, arts and civic groups
to help promote other causes. This is a
great example of art that's funded but
then gives back to the community.
So this leads to some other ideas. What if
instead of buying a large sculpture a
business sponsored an art happening, or
the public paid for an artist to view
their art intervention, or the government
gave grants for artists to curate
participatory experiences.
And here's another example. Government grants
to create art that benefits the
environment. English artist Nils Norman
creates an art garden that grows
vegetables and these visionary gardens,
inspired by the socio-ecological ideals
of permaculture, are a system that promotes
sustainable community-involved
agricultural design.
Improving the environment while
simultaneously creating a work of art,
what a great idea. 
An example is Marina Debris who I
suspect is a nom de plume. Her work is
literally rubbish, she uses upcycled trash
in her art to raise awareness of ocean
and beach pollution. She's also a
fundraiser for environmental
organizations and she receives grants
and has paid for conference appearances
and educational activities.
So the government or other
organizations can provide grants to
artists to curate participatory
experiences such as a Happening.
Here is a Happening in Berlin. An example of a
country that really supports this type
of art is Germany. They provide a huge
amount of grants to support art
organizations and artists. They provide
rent subsidies, commissions, insurance etc.
In conclusion, we've seen a lot of ideas
of sustainable art practices.
Recyclable art, reconfigurable art, use of ecological
materials, performance art, land art, time-based art,
artists activism. These are all
valuable ideas, but I think that we've
learned that the salient means to
achieve truly sustainable art is to
provide a much greater investment in the arts.
For truly sustainable art there
needs to be a shift from art as
predominantly marketplace commodity to
a practice of art as a public benefit and
ecological sustainability.
Thank you for listening and I hope I provided you with
some ideas to think about sustainable art.
We'll now take some questions and be
open for discussion.
Gunybi Ganambarr, born 1973, a Yolngu artist of
Northeast Arnhem Land in Australia,
is one of the most innovative contemporary
artists to come out of the region in
recent years.
Yolngu is the term his people use to
describe those indigenous to Northeast
Arnhem Land. Ganambarr takes innovation
in Yolngu art to its fullest expression
by incorporating mining industry
detritus as found objects in his art. 
My goal in this presentation is to describe
the deeper meanings of Ganambarr's
artistic practice in relation to the Yolngu
metaphysical concept of time which I
argue is intrinsic to his work and
offers an indigenous environmental
perspective on country.
In this talk I'll explore three of Ganambarr's artworks that use found industrial objects as raw
material to demonstrate how he merges
deep Yolngu cultural knowledge with his
distinctly contemporary context.
Ganambarr combines ancestral designs and
industrial materials to create a
conversation between form and content
that establishes space for contemplation
of a vast expanse of time.
My aim is to show how Ganambarr's art engages these ancestral concepts
time to provide a commentary on
contemporary land rights and caring for
the environment, known in Aboriginal
parlance as 'caring for Country', with a capital C.
Ganambarr lives and works in
his mother's home land of Gagan, a very
remote area that is a four-hour drive
from the nearest Aboriginal arts center
in Yirrkala. As of 2020 there are only
ten houses in Gangan and yet it is
home to six Aboriginal artists who have
each won a major Aboriginal art prize.
There, he learned from the elders nothing
less than, in his words, the foundations
of the deep identity of the world. 
From his youth Ganambarr's interests in the
foundations of Yolngu law and his cool
disposition put him on course to acquire
an unusual set of skills. He was sought
out by elders to resolve inter-clan
conflicts. He became an intercultural
figure by travelling widely as a skilled
ceremonial player of the yiḏakia, a wind
instrument also known as a didgeridoo.
He uses power tools such as the jigsaw and
dremel in his visual art, fabrication
skills he developed by building houses
on remote Aboriginal homelands.
The artist's personal experiences combined
with his innovative creative impulses
drove him to push Yolngu contemporary
art in a new direction.
He is a cross-cultural figure, pushing
cultural boundaries while remaining
faithful to Aboriginal roots. As a
cultural authority Ganambarr evaluates
each innovation in terms of its
faithfulness to Yolngu traditions
which are based on the actions of
ancestral beings that travelled the land
during the origin period known as 'The
Dreaming' or 'Wongar,  the times of the
first morning. He uncovers new layers of
meaning to maintain relevance for Yolngu
clans and descendants. Global recognition
and appreciation for his art attest to
the efficacy of his project to
communicate Yolngu concerns to an
international audience. 
 His success might surprise those who hold Aboriginal
art to standards of cultural purity that would not
be applied to other contemporary art
practices. Change is reluctantly accepted
by some outsiders who tend to fetishize
a restrictive definition of authentic
Aboriginal expression requiring all
natural materials.
As a non-Yolngu person
I am relying on information gathered by
anthropologists and art center
workers to provide insights to aspects
of culture that informed his work,
especially the conception of time in
which the past, present and future are
happening simultaneously. This concept
leads to the incorporation of time as an
identifiable component of the work.
Yolngu artists have stated that one of the main
goals of their art is cross-cultural
communication with cultural outsiders.
Historically Yolngu used their art as
a means both to assert their ownership
of the land and to express the land's
ancestral significance, making their art
integral to land rights litigation.
In the 1960s Yolngu  autonomy was threatened by state-backed
mining interests prompting an
urgent expression of ownership and
connection to country. The 1963 Yirrkala bark petition against that
bauxite aluminium ore mine marked the
start of the recent history of
aboriginal art used explicitly for
communicating with non-Aboriginal groups.
The two typewritten pages of the
petition are glued to pieces of bark,
embellished with a border of clan
designs legitimizing the typewritten
claims with features of their visual
culture thousands of years old.
Ganambarr lived through a similar land rights battle started in 2008 that reclaimed
the Blue Mud Bay tidal lands under
indigenous ownership based on ancestral
culture as evidence.
Fast-forward to December 2017 and the
opening of Gulkula mining company, the
first Aboriginal owned bauxite mine. The
company trains and employs Aboriginal
workers in sustainable practices
for mining the richness of bauxite in
the land, the presence of which is an
ancestral gift.
Environmental concerns might be relatable for non- Yolngu but environmentalism does not effectively
summarize ancestral land stewardship. In
Ganambarr's art, ancestral designs
inscribe contemporary objects and
therefore contemporary life into a
system of representation that asserts
the pre-existing and continuous
sovereignty of ancestral culture. His
found-object works illustrate how these
industrial materials can be made to
yield to a bigger picture, yielding to
the 'Caring for Country' with a capital C.
In his practice found objects lose their
industrial significance and are
repositioned within an ancestral
timeline. This use of industrial mining
detritus pushes the elasticity of Yolngu
culture and gives non-Yolngua new people an
opportunity to contemplate a more
expansive understanding of time. Since we
relate to the universe through time, a
change in perspective can revise
mistaken beliefs about ownership of the land.
Ganambar utilizes his skills with
the electric dremel to incise systems of
diamond-shaped patterns into metal in
'Buyku' 2018. The designs have a variety
of sources that reach back to ancestral
times. The finely crosshatched lines
produce the shimmering optical effect
known as 'Bir'yun' that is required to
adequately reflect the sacred ancestral
energy of the subject. Ancestral designs,
recreated by the artist, appear as a
decorative motif but are actually a
manifestation of the source of ancestral
power. The imagery represents the mixing
of freshwater and saltwater during the
wet season of flooding and the
ceremonies and patterns that accompany
that occasion. The Buyku fish trap is a
recurring theme for Ganambarr, where he
creates a visual representation of
seasonal renewal - at the end we'll look
at another work by the same title. The
The Buyku motif is multivalent, signifying the physical trap,
the trapping ceremony and all the
ancestors who previously performed the ceremony.
The patterns are enclosed by
larger meandering segments that recreate
the surface of water during the flood. 
In talking about the work Ganambarr
describes the visual qualities of flood
water, suggesting the formal content is
derived as much from observations of
nature as from classical Yolngu
patterning. In this way the conceptually
radical all-over composition of 'Buyku'
2018 is a naturalistic representation of
colliding tides.
Anthropologist Howard Morphy describes the spiritual and cultural imperative to reproduce
ancestral designs as a fundamental
element of cultural maintenance for the Yolngu.
He also identifies the forms
with natural phenomena, such as ripples
on a water surface, as evidence of the
continuous presence of ancestral beings.
The repeated pattern dominates as an
isolated visual element in the work,
creating the shimmering presence of
ancestral power through bir'yun.
Without any other signposts to indicate
the location or discern a narrative, the
viewer is placed within a timeless
moment that recurs each wet season.
Ganambarr repeats the diamond patterning
to display an active conversation with
the past and the ever-present ancestral
power. This interaction of the ancestral,
the observable and the industrial
reveals how metaphysical time guides the
artistic reinvention crucial to Yolngu
culture. Ganambarr's ancestors are
affiliated with the freshwater spirit
and he also gained ceremonial experience
working for the saltwater clan. The
combining of sacred freshwater of the
river system with saltwater flows from
the ocean is of major cultural
significance and important for
understanding fishing patterns and
seasonal change. The high contrast system
of clan patterns symbolically shows the
blending of opposing groups that come
together to fish for nourishing food.
Banambarr makes this blending of clans
the subject of the work on an epic scale,
modeling a harmonious intercultural
exchange. In Yolngu society each clan has
its own designs that encode ownership of
specific tracts of ancestral land.
The design acts as a title deed operative in
the distant past, present and future.
In order to understand the cultural climate
in which these designs are open to
interpretation, it may be helpful to
first explore the first instance of
their production by ancestors. Ancestral
beings spend time on earth that was
explosively creative yet finite,
conceivable by human minds because of
the linear structure of their stories
that include trauma and death.
The ancestral beings have relatable
experiences. At times they grow weary or
act hastily, granting a human quality to
the first mark-makers. The ancestral
beings created features of the landscape
while occupied with epic dramas and also
mundane events, like chasing a love
interest or making a fire. They created
designs by accident and mid-journey,
suggesting no intrinsic mandate that the
designs remain static. Designs were
passed down to the first human ancestors
and kept alive by recreating that first
act of making and aligning contemporary
artistic activity with ancestral
creative actions.
This quality of  Aboriginal art communicates not only the
transcultural power of Ganambarr's
practice, communicating between Yolngu
and Western cultures, but also its
trans-temporal function, communicating
between ancestral and contemporary
moments. The practice of mimicry of the
ancestral reveals the ancient roots of
his process but also the sanctity of the
artist's role in expressing the ancestral.
Through insight into the observable and
ancestral sources of his designs we can
glimpse the significance of reproducing
designs as transcending the human scale
of time and giving voice to ancestors
and country in which industry overpowers
indigenous lives.
As found objects in
their own right,
natural ochre pigments and bark have
ancestral origins that inform their use
in ceremony and art. Ganambarr has
determined that industrial objects found
on the land satisfied the Yolngu
mandate that you must paint the land
with materials from the land. Rather than
expressing a rejection or slackening of
Yolngu law, this innovation is a more
expansive interpretation reflecting the
reality of a changed landscape in the
context of a continuous ancestral presence.
In Ganambarr's sculpture 'Dhangultji' 2010, he applies clan designs and
natural pigments to a lightweight
industrial plastic pipe known as
polyvinyl chloride or PVC. The work is
conceived as a memorial sculpture that
is an idiom in Yolngu art practices. It
is in the form of a larrakitj, a
coffin for the bones of the deceased
historically made from a termite-hollowed log.
Ganambarr removes sections
from the PVC pipe so that negative space
reveals the shape of a bird, thus
altering the original function of the
larrakitj as a container. In this
gesture he expands the visual vocabulary
of larrakitj through the new
structural possibilities afforded by PVC.
The figure of the bird conveys the next
phase of the cyclical path of the larrakitj form.
The ossuary is meant to
biodegrade back into the land as of the
completion of its ceremonial purpose. 
In this work the container of death takes
on the naturalistic form of a new life.
Ganambarr is preceded by generations
of contemporary Arnhem Land artists
including his father-in-law Djambawa Marawili,
who trained him in visual
production. In addition to pioneering new
visual forms of expression in the 1990s
Marawili is also a political and
social visionary responsible for
organizing the community in the fight
for the intertidal lands of Blue Mud Bay.
Ganambarr may also have learned from
Marawili the role of art in
expressing the will of the land .
On this topic Marawili states
'the land has everything it needs.
But it couldn't speak. It couldn't
express itself. Tell its identity. And so
it grew a tongue. That is the Yolngu.
That is me.
We are the tongue of the land. Grown by
the land so it can sing who it is. 
We exist so we can paint the land.
That's our job
Paint and sing and dance. So it can feel
good to express its true identity.
Without us it cannot talk. But it is
still there.
Only silent.'
The various innovations that
Ganambarr has developed throughout his
practice speak to this quality of Yolngu
artists as a mouthpiece for the land
and therefore a mouthpiece for ancestral
culture and country. In Buyku' 2011 Ganambarr carves a piece of rubber conveyor
belt from a mine near his studio. The
rubber belt was used to take richness
away from the community, but Ganambarr
returns that value by raising awareness
about Yolngu identity. While the
industrial materials lend certain
aesthetic qualities to the work, Ganambarr's choice of materials is not a purely
formal exploration nor is it an
exclusively environmental commentary.
The encroachment of outside values can over-determine Ganambarr's materials as a
demonstration of environmental activism
when the reality is a more complex
presentation of Aboriginal identity, time
and the continuous ancestral presence in Country.
Yolngu found object art offers
an alternative to the anthropocentric
worldview. This work undermines the
capital-centric plan in which
industry overpowers indigenous lives and
redefines Country as the original voice,
to be engaged not exploited. Analysis of
found object works is deepened by the
Yolngu continuous present concept of
time. Ganambarr's found objects amplify
this concept so that the works operate
in a unique temporal moment helping
non-Yolngu minds
grapple with Yolngu simultaneity.
Surely the concept of bir'yun and the artist's
role of creating opportunities for the
ancestral past to emanate through
shimmering optical effects takes on a
formidable quality when the ancestral
past emanates for the first time through
the surface of a PVC pipe. What most
fascinates is that Ganambarr's radical
gestures are never a rejection of old
ways, even in his most extreme
innovations. The ancestral and
naturalistic sources of imagery are
incorporated and his art firmly set in
the Yolngu cultural historical
foundation, brings the formal content
into a new era. He is moving between
mediums, separating and recombining
materials, exploring their interactions
and the formal possibilities they create.
While doing this, a metaphysics of
materials emerges in which time mediates
ongoing changes in land use and
ultimately re-enscribes the land with
indigenous sovereignty.
Ganambarr's purpose is to uncover layers of meaning
in Yolngu traditions, keeping them
relevant to the next generations. His
combination of ancient designs and
industrial materials, signals an expanse
of time that dwarfs current power
structures and shows the primacy of
Yolngu culture in Yolngu art history.
By pushing the boundaries of his art
materials Ganambarr expands the
possibilities of meaning production in 
Yolngu fabrication practices and
authors a formal language for communicating Yolngu identity and concerns. Thank you.
Thank you so much
Mary. I'd like to invite Lisa and Mary to
come forward for about, let me see, 12
minutes of Q&A.
So I'm gonna just start to pull from the
audience questions and I'll start with a
question for Lisa from Christian: 'you
talked about digital arts such as Tommy Hartung's
work as one of the sustainable
art practices. I was wondering what you
think about the impact of technology - 
server centres in the desert, digital
waste, the ecological impact of the
internet -  on ecology and sustainability?
In what ways might digital art practices be
or not being sustainable?
Well, that is an excellent question and
I'll have to say right off I don't have
all the answers. This was a presentation
that just highlighted some ideas.
Digital art can be environmental, it also cannot
be environmental if it uses up a lot of
energy in producing and showing it. But,
it doesn't use a lot of natural
resources and it can be replicated without using a lot of
materials, so in that sense it is
environmental. But your question leads to
a really good point, which is that we
have to consider all the types of
approaches in art in the time of climate
change and we had a really interesting
discussion about Eliasson and his work
that even though it had a really strong
environmental message, it might not have
been environmental in itself, but I would
argue that has a really strong impact,
you know, that as powerful impact as
Lorenzo Quinn's hand in the Venice
Biennale which also might not be
considered an environmentally produced
work but my presentation was focusing on
ways that individual artists and venues
can just start thinking about these
issues and whether their practice really
is a sustainable one. I'll leave it there.
Thank you Lisa. I'm gonna move now to a
question for Mary, from Dennis. So Mary
you read Ganambarr's oeuvre very much in
the way I would imagine he would present
it to his audience or the way a gallery
would present it to clients. Could it not
be read equally as an art market
fetishization of the ancestral and an
exploitation of Aboriginal art traditions.  
That's an interesting
question. You know I think that one of
the ways that you can be certain it's
not an exploitation is, that is the
artists decision to create works for
sale. So one of the things I tried to
describe in the presentation is that
there's a historical precedent for art
purely as a form of communication with
outsiders. So when you look at a work by
Gunybi Ganambarr
you're seeing a piece of culture that
has been packaged for outsiders, you know
the inside version might be in the
form of body painting or something that
is actually restricted and would not be
visible to an outside audience. So
it's a unique idiom, it's an idiomatic
form that is an indigenous,  that's, you know,
know a truly indigenous art form. that
has been created for outside consumption
So in a way I consider it sort of an
achievement that the work is, you know,
creating art that can be commodified by the art market, that to
me seems like an adoption of a new
language that is that is effective in
communicating Yolngu concerns to to a
much, much wider audience. That's how I
learned about it for instance.
Great, thank you
I'm gonna now move to a question for
Lisa which is from one of our speakers
tomorrow, Laura, and Laura says thank you
Lisa, very interesting presentation.
You define sustainable art by referring
to the concept of damage. How do you
define damage.
How do i define damage?
I think different people would define it
differently but for purposes of
sustainable art in the issues that I was
looking at, I would define it as art that
doesn't utilize a lot of natural
materials, doesn't destroy them. So for
instance in some of the art work they
didn't cut down trees to make an
installation, they found objects that
already had fallen and then the other
aspect of doing no harm would be not
producing something that is toxic or
environmentally harmful. Using that word
harmful but not producing something that
that does damage. So again, the two things:
not using resources and not producing
something that hurts the environment.
Mm-hmm, yes,  indeed I think this
is quite an interesting time to bring in
the question from Anna which I
think for both people, both Mary
and Lisa,  could have...I'd be interested to
know your thoughts on this which is
about the historic differences in how
public funding is targeted and
especially between the context we were
looking at between the UK, North America
and Australia and how does the condition
of public funding and how
does the state of public funding and its
allocation condition what the work the
artists make. 
But also I'll just answer that and maybe Mary can address the
Australia part of it. Really interesting
question and quite germane to how we can
fund sustainable art.
I was at an art fellowship this past
year, for a month, with eight other
international artists and one of the
things we discussed was
art funding and I used the example of
Germany because they fund artists to a
huge degree in all sorts of ways you
know, they pay their rent, they
commissioned projects,  the U.S. has
drastically, under this horrible
administration, we didn't have a huge
amount of support for the Arts to begin
with but the National Endowment for the
Arts which is the main art funding
source was really cut, so a lot of the
art that is produced is under - especially
large-scale art - is under the domain of
corporate sponsorships and that really
skewers the message. So that's why my
point is if you want to have sustainable
art and art that's environmental and
educates on the environment you have to
invest into it and it can come around
and you know create value as well. Mary
maybe you can talk about Australia.
Yeah, I guess in terms of funding in Australia
that's the subject of a
future project for me for sure. So I can't speak to the specifics
right now of say government or corporate
sponsorship but what I what I would say
is that the Arts Center model which I
touch on a little bit, just the access to
art centers, which have you know, 
they have these you know wonderful
online marketplaces for buying
indigenous art as directly as
possible from the artists so for
instance, actually my dress is from
Babbarra designs, in Maningrida,
Australia which is two hours away from
where Ganambarr is practicing his work.
So purchasing art directly from art
centers is sort of the most ethical
way of supporting these projects. They do
get some state funding of course but
I'm not familiar with the specifics of
that, but it does you know
it gives access to materials. Of course
with Ganambarr his access to materials
has so much to do with the way that
industry is affecting his environment so he's getting so many of his art
materials from the land from, you know,
what's left over from mining projects so
in terms of funding that's a little bit
of a grey area considering that it's
starting with found
objects I like that question though.
Well, maybe that's a good place to wrap up
this panel. Thank you both so much for
such brilliant papers here - round of applause here - and we'll now
take a seven minute break.
