8-19 October
Residency: Active Ingredient
Active Ingredient were an artist collective working in collaboration with scientists and researchers across the UK and Brazil to create A Conversation Between Trees.
Introduction panel by Northbank
Active Ingredient visualised and interpreted environmental data from trees in both countries as a new interactive artwork. Their ‘climate machine’ was a kinetic sculpture that scorched the levels of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere onto recycled paper.
During the residency, visitors were able to borrow a mobile phone to take into the forest. The phone application guided them into the woods, asking them to act as human sensors and control the way the forest was captured, visualised and sensed, as they explored.
- 11 October: Twilight Teachers’ Workshop
- 12 October: Workshop for children/youthworkers
22 October 2011-29 January 2012
A Conversation Between Trees
Exhibition
Curated by Chris Lewis, Active Ingredient’s residency and exhibition A Conversation Between Trees was initially part of an ambitious ‘Digital Ecologies’ project designed to bring together a range of UK and global artists’ responses to our place within the natural world using the latest digital technologies. The eventual decision to focus on Active Ingredient’s work exclusively was in part due to funding constraints, but, more importantly, due to how appropriate it seemed considering CCANW’s location at Haldon.
Views of activities during the exhibition. Photos Chris Lewis.
A Conversation Between Trees revealed the invisible forces at play in forests. Large video projections showed trees from Brazil and the UK ‘in conversation’ – revealing the light, colour and climate in the canopy of trees, changing over time. Environmental sensors were placed in the canopy of trees in each of the forests and data sent to the gallery via a mobile phone. A unique set of art prints generated by the climate machine during the artists residency was exhibited in the gallery.
University of the Trees: 18-19 November
On 18 November Shelley Sacks did an Earth Forum, recently used in Germany and South Africa, with a few of the UOT-Exeter members and friends. On the following evening she gave a lecture to a group of artists, curators, and activists on UOT that involved a connective practice.
In addition to these advertised ‘public events’, many connective practice workshops were organised and facilitated by Johanna from CCANW between 2008 and 2011 for schools, teachers, artists, people with disabilities, young offenders and the local UOT network. (See University of the Trees).
Activities
- 26 October: Big Draw workshops
- 4 November: Forum Wool Culture with Lise Hauge and update on the Wool Directory. Princetown
- 19-20 November: University of the Trees led by Shelley Sacks (rescheduled from June)
- 23 November: Film screening Chernobyl
- 2 December: Film Festival showcase
- 7 December: Friends festive decorations workshop
4-19 February 2012
Rising Sap: Young Peoples Artwork Inspired by Trees
Exhibition
This exhibition of work submitted by young people and schools in Devon continued CCANW’s 2011-12 theme Tree Culture which explored our relationship to trees. The work was made in a variety of media, from exploratory mark-making using twigs from Haldon Forest, bowls cut from a single felled oak tree, to photographs of sculpture made in the forest during school visits and more.
Introduction panel by Northbank
Saatchi prize winner, Julia Whiting, who graduated the previous year from St Margaret’s School in Exeter, showed two drawings of trees as part of the exhibition.
See also:
25 February-25 March
Fundraiser: My Favourite Tree
Exhibition
My Favourite Tree was an exhibition culminating in an auction to which we invited artists and environmentalists to donate work.
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April-September 2012