Places to Intervene, The Crypt, Bethnal Green, London, August 20 - 22, 2021
DIALOGUES WITH ECOLOGIES: AN ART-RESEARCH EXHIBITION FURTHER INFORMATION: https://linktr.ee/placestointervene
A group show in Bethnal Green’s Crypt Gallery with Catherine Herbert, Lumen, Katherine Pogsun, Becky Lyon, Phil Barton
Inspired by Donella Meadows’ seminal text: Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System, 1997
Five creative practitioners and an experimental exhibition of research, participatory artworks and inquiries-in-progress. This project originates in a reading group of UAL postgraduates and alumni, exploring ‘other-than-human’ theory.
Taking systems-thinker Donella Meadows’ 1999 article Leverage points: Places to intervene in a system1 as a critical and curatorial stimulus, each artist responds by researching aspects of a renewed relationship with nature through diverse practices.
In the year of COP26, when the implications of human generated climate emergency are ever clearer, and ‘zoonotic’ diseases point to the friction between humans and others sharing a finite living space, we scope out different ways to recalibrate human understanding, empathy and relationship with the natural world. To become more ‘eco-logical’2.
“Goals, power structures, rules and cultures” are the creators of systems of human behaviour, according to Meadows. Humans have instinctive awareness of the leverage points within these systems, the nodes where intervention is possible. And we almost as unerringly push the levers in the wrong direction.
Community engagement, citizen science, conservation, critical anthropomorphism and ‘multi-species-becoming-with’3, are all engaged through a sensory approach which seeks to turn things inside out and bring the outside in. Visitors will explore artworks and participate in events both inside the gallery space and outside in the Museum Garden and local nature reserves.
Bonner’s Mullbery Tree, Looped Video Installation, The Crypt, St John at Bethnal Green
A looped projection of a site in Bethnal Green sealed off and marked for development which is home to an iconic 500-year-old Mulberry tree. The tree has been subject to a high-profile campaign, saving it from the danger of being moved to another site.
Timelapse photography of Phytology, an art and environment project in Middleton Rd, Bethnal Green, working with local plants, wildlife and residents. Time-lapse images recorded over prolonged periods using a DIY solar powered camera system. Catherine’s interested in developing technology so that it can be situated strategically in local sites to intensify community networks and focus attention on the immediate environment.
Working with Little Rangers Kindergarten in Bethnal Green, Catherine has audio recorded children’s experiences as they attend forest school at Phytology to create the audio piece Lords and Ladies. This was played in St John’s Chruch and outside in trees in nearby Museum Gardens, Bethnal Green. With an interest in how art unfolds and impacts in real-time, she added to the piece throughout the exhibition by collecting more thoughts and memories of nature from residents local to the area.
