Disappearing Into The Long Grass…

What, one might legitimately ask, is the point of an artist-in-residence?

Whatever our calling, fundamental questions of this type – whilst easily dismissed through familiarity – need addressing sometimes. And as artist-in-residence for the Rhôs Pasture Restoration Project and (more widely) practitioner operating within environmental and public spheres it’s one of a sort that I’m always asking of myself, probably in seeking self justification.

In our modern ‘Western’ society we’re inclined to view art as a commodity; something to be consumed. We are preoccupied with its financial value, with owning it. We see it as product.

It’s not this way everywhere however. Indeed, research suggests that our own ‘Ice Age’ ancestors evolved their art as a kind of ‘glue’ in society; a way of forming bonds and building trust – thereby fostering a sense of well-being and belonging. This is still evident in other cultures today where what we term ‘art’ is more ritual; founded on inter-generational process and the making and maintenance of expressions of identity and universal order.

This ethos is central to my practice - but at the same time it’d be untruthful of me to deny that it isn’t also about playfully satisfying my own insatiable curiosity and fascination with the natural world, the people who inhabit it and the shifting relationship between the two. Or indeed that I’m often simply beguiled by its beauty.

I don’t use the word playfully lightly. The best scientists I’ve worked with (and there have been a fair few) are playful in mindset. They’re prepared to kick ideas around; to be unconstrained in their thinking, to move things into compartments that logic tell us they shouldn’t inhabit and to make mistakes. This is the nature of creativity and it’s as important in science as it is in art. This, so often, is how the big breakthroughs happen. But within our product driven society with its time-and-motion work ethic, the notion of ‘play’ is a dirty one and something to be frowned upon – even when its upshots make our lives easier.

As an animator I know that by disrespecting established Laws it’s by and large possible to make anything happen – so long as you can first imagine it. I can make the impossible possible in front of your eyes; inanimate objects become imbued with anima or life’s energy through a process that we might think of as ‘magic’.

Such sleight of hand is a powerful engagement tool – we are all drawn to that which defies logic. But first, in defining what the ‘show’ is we must ask questions. Many questions. Through the responses we garner we can eventually form something truthful which becomes a kind of manifesto, statement of shared belief, purpose or emotion. And therein lies the key because whilst science informs change, it’s emotion that propels it.

So, in answer to this fundamental question regarding my role, I would say that I’m here to ask questions across a broad spectrum of perspectives, to process the answers (so as to ask more questions), to find resonance and wonder – and through all of this to devise a mechanism whereby many people can participate in the making process because it is this shared experience that has the most powerful effect as a unifying force. In essence, capturing hearts such that minds follow – because, uncomfortable though the idea might seem in a ‘rationally’ defined world, emotion is first and foremost what drives behaviour.*

I also have to confess that this somewhat visceral approach is to a degree an act of faith. I quite often don’t fully understand what I’m doing as I do it as the enquiry is constantly unfurling. Yet within this process of many dialogues it’s extraordinary how what become central ideas, opportunities and solutions never fail to present themselves. It’s as though the work shapes itself and I’ve subsequently learned to trust a process which has yielded powerful results that transcend language and culture and which – across a variety of platforms – have reached millions.

To return to the ‘ritual’ aspect of art, this can emerge in the the form of image making, poetry, music, sound and three dimensional form which through realisation by many hands and voices assume familiar patterns whilst retaining a degree of diversity. Through shared process barriers are brought down, revised perspectives reached and trust built. We can see evidence for this in ‘Ice Age’ cultures – and it’s striking that forty thousand years on we are still finding room for these mechanisms in an increasingly resource-diminished society.

Like it or not, art – and perhaps in its process rather than product – is as much of an expression as it has ever been; of what we value, of our relationship with our environment, of what we are as humans.

And as I so often find, we can unearth powerful metaphor for the best of our humanity through observation of our surroundings; in the reciprocal relationship between jay and oak, bee and flower. We gain valuable insights into ourselves from the natural world when we engage with it through the keen eye of the naturalist. But the manner in which we express the experience of doing so, the joy we find in discovery and the truths we arrive at are the domain of art; the conduit through which we may ask those complex and nuanced questions whose answers inhabit the gaps between ‘facts’ in the realm beyond the empirical.

*Dolly Jørgensen, Professor of History at the University of Stavanger expands on this in ‘Recovering Species in the Modern Age; histories of longing and belonging’.

The micro speaks as eloquently as the macro…