Exile: A Living Of Forest Exhibition Guide

EXILE: A LIVING OF FOREST

EXILE: A LIVING OF FORESTWelcome to the second exhibition in ONCA’s three-part Changing Habitats programme. Enter the forest through animal eyes, and explore woodlands through paws, claws, furs and feathers. Humans are taught to set up strict boundaries between our world and that of the animal, but we ask – what would happen if we let these boundaries dissolve?

7TH AUGUST - 14TH SEPTEMBER 2014THE ONCA GALLERY, BRIGHTON

IMAGE: CHIMANUKA. (C) KAHUZI BIEGA NATIONAL PARK

“Exploring the becoming-animal theme feels absolutely critical in these challenging ecological times. We need to resist the temptation to dismiss it as being peripheral to our lives, as something that belongs in trivial fairytales or obsolete myths, for engaging with ideas around becoming-animal offers us a unique opportunity to repair our fractured relationship with the wild as well as with our own animal selves.”

Susan Richardson

FEATURED ARTISTS:

Angela BartramAurelia MihaiBob and Roberta SmithBridget McKenzieChris WatsonClara S RueprichHolly BudgeInes QueridoJacob Cartwright and Nick JordanJennifer HooperJessie JermynJohn MitchellJulie DoddLorenzo M. DuránNicola McCartneyPenelope OakleyPerdita SinclairRachel MayeriSintija VikmaneSuky BestSusan RichardsonTessa Farmer and Sean DanielsThomas Keyes

SPECIAL GUEST PERFORMERS and SPEAKERS:

Abbie PalacheAdrian HarrisAlan BoldonEleanor O’HanlonFeral TheatreIan Redmond OBEJoanna ColemanJohn PlowmanLisa SchneidauTouchedTheatre

THE EXILE PROJECT WAS CURATED BY:

Rosemarie McGoldrick London-based sculptor and installation artist, who has shown nationally and internationally. She trained at Middlesex, Chelsea and Goldsmiths, has taught Fine Art at the CASS since 1995 and is now Course Leader for BA Fine Art. She has curated two major exhibition-and-symposium events: The Animal Gaze (2008) which toured London, Plymouth, Exeter and Sheffield and The Animal Gaze Returned (2011).

Laura Coleman Founder and Director of the ONCA Trust and Gallery. Trained at the Univerity of York and East Anglia, with over ten years experience working on grassroots conservation projects, she is a conservationist and curator, specialising in projects where art and ecology intersect.

Image: film still from Condition M, by Clara S Rueprich

Kahuzi Biega National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, located in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The park is a critical habitat for a number of species, including the endangered Eastern lowland gorilla. This area has been affected by serious civil unrest, and suffers from severe deforestation. Dedicated rangers risk their lives on a regular basis in order to patrol the Park and protect its inhabitants. They work in tough conditions, with minimal equipment or support – large areas of the park have been largely inaccessible since 1996 due to the presence of armed militias.

The Born Free Foundation has supported a variety of projects in Kahuzi Biega since 2000, including equipping the rangers and providing alternative livelihoods opportunities for the local community. Over the last year, Born Free have helped to develop the park’s gorilla health monitoring programme. This programme either directly or indirectly addresses the three key threats currently facing Eastern lowland gorillas: habitat loss, disease and poaching.

Gabriel Fava, Programmes Officer at Born Free Foundation: “The Born Free Foundation has a direct impact on the protection of wildlife and their habitats, and safeguards animals from essentially becoming exiled, either in the wild by virtue of their diminishing numbers or in captivity, often many miles from their home countries. Partnering with ONCA on the Exile exhibition allows Born Free to highlight its essential conservation work in the Kahuzi Biega National Park to a new audience and provoke thinking around our often devastating impact on animals in the wild.”

TO READ FURTHER ABOUT THIS CAMPAIGN IN ACTION VISIT:HTTP://WWW.BORNFREE.ORG.UK/CAMPAIGNS/PRIMATES/IN-ACTION/KBNP-GORILLAS/

THIS EXHIBITION IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE BORN FREE FOUNDATION, AN INTERNATIONAL WILDLIFE CHARITY WORKING THROUGHOUT THE WORLD TO STOP INDIVIDUAL WILD ANIMAL SUFFERING AND PROTECT THREATENED SPECIES IN THE WILD. FUNDS RAISED FROM THE EXHIBITION WILL BE DONATED TO SUPPORT BORN FREE FOUNDATION’S CONSERVATION WORK WITH KAHUZI BIEGA NATIONAL PARK.

HOW DOES IT FEEL FOR AN ANIMAL WHO LIVES IN THE FOREST WHEN THAT FOREST IS NO LONGER SAFE? AND CAN WE DISCOVER THE ANIMAL INSIDE OURSELVES TO IMAGINE THAT EXILE?

Rosie McGoldrick, Guest Curator:

“In describing the displacement of one of his mirrors in the hot Mexico sun on a field trip, the artist Robert Smithson once wrote drily: “Why should flies be without art?”

Well, imagining other animals’ subjectivities is odd. Immediately you do so, dyed-in-the-wool humanists think you’re being whimsical, trivial or (closer to the truth) that you’re an animal rights activist. Yet we’ve known for some time other animals feel - have memories, feel pain, emotion and pleasure. And also that other animals have different sensoria from the human animal and from each other.

These are serious discoveries. They justify us thinking that other animals might experience something like exile when made homeless. And that’s an issue of land and so needs a politics of representation...”

Taking place over 6 weeks ONCA’s Exile programme includes visual arts, films, workshops, performances, talks, puppetry and debates, as well as an interactive creative space at the ONCA Gallery in which every visitor will have the chance to explore their relationship with the animal other.

Key events as part of the programme include Encountering the Animal: An ONCA Conversation with special guest, conservationist Ian Redmond OBE and selected artists on 14 August, as well as Becoming-Animal, an evening of debate around the role of becoming-animal in promoting ecological activity on 30 August in partnership with University of Brighton.

Image: detail Following the Roe, by Thomas Keyes


CATALOGUE

Image: detail Lungs of the World, by Julie Dodd

ALL PRICES ON ENQUIRY

AngelA BArtrAm

licking Dogs

meDiA: ViDeo

Angela Bartram works in live art, video and sculpture and published text. Her interests concern threshold and ‘in-between’ spaces of the human body, gallery or museum and definitions of the human and animal within companion species relationships. Bartram completed a PhD at Middlesex University in 2010 and is senior lecturer at the University of Lincoln (UK) in the department of fine art.

inspirAtion BehinD this piece

“Closeness is a condition that impacts on the individual. A trace is left as corollary of the sufferance we feel at having an unwanted other close by: the metaphorical stain that is left by an unwelcome approach reminds us that we are mortal and physical beings. Unsolicited and personal, this serves to remind us that we are essentially animal: we wear the effect on our skin. Inappropriate touch between human and animals is debatable behaviour that creates ‘critical uneasiness.’ For as Georges Bataille suggested, when man perceives ‘…the animality in himself (he) regards it as a defect.’

‘Licking Dogs’ is a single-screen video artwork that sees canine and human mouths meet to lick. In using female human and neutered male dog subjects, it asks where humanity begins and animality ends.”

AureliA mihAi

the DAy (it Begins with the cock AnD enDs with the Dogs)

meDiA: ViDeo

Aurelia Mihai is an artist and filmmaker born in Bucharest, Romania who lives and works in Hamburg, Germany. She is professor at the Braunschweig University of Art, Germany since 2009. Mihai’s video work has been the recipient of numerous prizes and scholarships that include the E STAR Scholarship from the Institute for Electronic Arts, Alfred, New York and the Villa Aurora Scholarship, Los Angeles, USA (2001), Her works have been exhibited internationally at the Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg, K21 Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle Mainz, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Kunsthalle Bremen, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, “The Worldly House“, DOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany, at the Chelsea Art Museum, New York, The Cheekwood Art Museum, Nashville Tennessee, USA , Centre Pompidou, Paris, among many others.


“It appears it will be a day like any other. From a bird’s eye view, the camera looks down on the corrugated iron roof of a house and its verandah. Cleaning and dusting is being done, coffee drunk, the baby taken out into the fresh air, and a cute little goat is tied to the table, who investigates its surroundings and occasionally causes the coffee to spill over.

In just a few scenes that gently dissolve into one another, Aurelia Mihai succeeds in capturing a piece of everyday life. Then comes the transformation: two men cut up the goat with deft and practised movements. A small dog watches. That this event is a matter of course and inevitable makes the observer pause breathlessly for a few moments.”

Text by Marvin Altner

BoB AnD roBertA smith

untitleD

size: 70 x 91 cm

meDiA: oil on wooD

Bob and Roberta Smith see art as an important element in democratic life. Much of their art takes the form of painted signs. Central to Bob and Roberta Smith’s thinking is the idea that campaigns are extended art works which include a variety of consciousness raising artefacts.

Bob and Roberta Smith studied at the MA at Goldsmiths from 1991 to 93. They were an Artist Trustee of Tate between 2009 and 2013, and is currently a trustee for the National Campaign for the Arts, and a patron of the NSEAD. More recently they have been elected to be a Royal Academician.


“Becoming a vegetarian before the Animal Gaze Returned show in 2011.”

BriDget mckenzie

ghost tree - A memoriAl for lost trees

size: 80 x 140 x 100 cm

meDiA: tissue pAper, wool, willow logs AnD clAy (porcelAin, BlAck clAy, pAper clAy), AnD poem.

Bridget McKenzie is a cultural learning consultant, photographer and writer. As founding director of Flow, she helps cultural organisations in the UK and India. Before this, she was head of learning at the British Library and education officer for Tate. She contributes poems, articles, ideas and photographs to a number of networks and publications, including the Dark Mountain Project and the Art Not Oil coalition. She runs a project called Beuysterous, which encourages the planting, care and sustainable use of trees and forests, through creative actions and the inspirations of artists. See more on aboutbridgetmckenzie.wordpress.com


“This is a response to the many trees drowned or damaged in the UK’s storms and floods of 2013-14 and more generally to the bigger mass of trees being deliberately destroyed in the pursuit of economic growth as well as those struggling with disease and extreme storms worsened by climate change. Trees are lives in themselves. They communicate with each other via mychorrizal networks beneath the soil. They are also habitats for countless small forms of life, especially insects, fungi and moulds, as well as providing good conditions for life for birds and larger animals. Many of these forms of life become homeless when a tree is felled. The inspiration for this Ghost Tree came when a willow tree in our garden had to be felled. This work was installed in our treehouse above the remaining stumps of the tree.”

chris wAtson

horse of the wooDs

[cApull coille, ‘horse of the cAleDoniAn wooDs’]

tAken from the AlBum “outsiDe the circle of fire” [touch # to:37, 2012]

puBlisheD By touch music [mcps]

Chris Watson is one of the world’s leading recorders of wildlife and natural phenomena, and for Touch he edits his field recordings into a filmic narrative. For example. the unearthly groaning of ice in an Icelandic glacier is a classic example of, in Watson’s words, putting a microphone where you can’t put your ears.

Born in 1953 in Sheffield where he attended Rowlinson School and Stannington College, Watson was a founding member of the influential Sheffield based experimental music group Cabaret Voltaire during the 1970’s and early 1980’s. His sound recording career began in 1981 when he joined Tyne Tees Television. Since then he has developed a particular and passionate interest in recording the wildlife sounds of animals, habitats and atmospheres from around the world. As a freelance composer and recordist for Film, TV & Radio, Watson specialises in natural history and documentary location sound together with sound design in post production.

His television work includes many programmes in the David Attenborough ‘Life’ series including ‘The Life of Birds’ which won a BAFTA Award for ‘Best Factual Sound’ in 1996. More recently Watson was the location sound recordist with David Attenborough on the BBC’s series ‘Frozen Planet’ which won a BAFTA Award for ‘Best Factual Sound’ (2012).

www.chriswatson.net

Image credit: Kate Humble

clArA s rueprich

conDition m

meDiA: ViDeo


“I’m working in the realm of human – nature. condition M is a work on the relation human – animal. What I show in the video is part of the training of hunting dogs. But it is more than a video about hunting; it is about power, control, obedience and natural instinct. And, in a way it is also a political work.

My approach is at the same time realistic and symbolic. I just use the symbolic potential of reality without determining it to a single meaning.To some extent my recent videos also insinuate aesthetically to historical paintings (for instance 18th century hunting scenes or landscape painting).”

holly BuDge

96 elephAnts A DAy

meDiA: necklAce, VegetABle iVory AnD glAss

Holly Budge has been working as a jewellery designer and maker for over ten years, with a passion for vegetable ivory. She is currently studying for a Masters in Sustainable Design at University of Brighton, where she is experimenting further with the material. Holly strives to educate conscious buyers on the fight against elephant poaching in Africa, alongside rainforest deforestation in South America, through her bold, sustainable jewellery line. Her current jewellery collection is available online at www.hollybudge.com


“My infographic exhibition ‘96 Elephants A Day’ presents a physical commentary on the devastating impacts of the elephant ivory trade. On average 96 elephants a day are poached in Africa for their ivory. At this rate, the elephant will be extinct by 2025. I am proposing vegetable ivory, a natural plant material from the Amazon rainforest, as a more sustainable alternative to elephant ivory. My infographic necklace showcases 96 elephants laser cut from vegetable ivory. The brass elephant represents the bullet shells commonly used by the poachers. Part of the originality of this exhibition is in my approach to avoid gruesome and shocking imagery to portray the facts. It is not about scaring people, it’s about sharing the enormity of the poaching crisis and presenting the facts to bring about positive change. This exhibition will be showcased in London, Shanghai & Hong Kong this year. I am delighted to have the support of Tusk, who will auction the necklace later this year.”

www.96elephantsaday.com

ines Dos sAntos QueriDo

wooDen tAles - wilDerness extinction

meDiA: Jewellery, mADe of wooD

Ines Querido is a Portuguese photographer and artist based in Germany. She has studied, worked and exhibited in different cities, including New York, London, and Amsterdam. A strong curiosity in regards to sustainable living has drawn her to a series of journeys and bodies of work connected with the subject. From those experiences grew the wish to not only continue working on environmental related topics, but also to actively take part in the change she is documenting.

inspirAtion BehinD these pieces

“My projects always aim to communicate a meaningful and informative message on subjects related to ecology, emerging cultures and traditional lifestyles.

Wilderness extinction is a unique collection of handmade wood jewellery featuring images of recently extinct animals and plants. The collection comprises earrings, necklaces, brooches and rings made out of dry wood collected from forests or with recycled wood. To each article belongs a card with a few details about the species. Every piece is developed through a delicate manual process, but as an end product the works are very resistant and can be dealt without particular care. The varnishes used to produce this collection are all water based, as well as the final coating that repels water and filters UV radiation inhibiting wood decay. All metal components are nickel-free. The handmade origami gift boxes are made with recycled paper from old theatre magazines.”

JAcoB cArtwright AnD nick JorDAn west point

meDiA: ViDeo

Jacob Cartwright and Nick Jordan are artists based in Manchester, UK. Their work has been exhibited internationally, including at ICA, London; Centre for Contemporary Culture, Moscow; Academia de Cine, Madrid; and Musée du Quai Branly, Paris. Their collaborative practice is cross-disciplinary, encompassing video, drawing, painting, photography, sculpture and publications, often exploring the relationship between the natural world and our multifaceted cultural histories.

Publications include Alien Invaders (Book Works), which takes the form of a guidebook to non-native species found in Britain, and The Audubon Trilogy, a series of short films drawn from the writings of 19th century artist & frontiersman John James Audubon.


“West Point, the hunting of the passenger pigeon, focuses upon John James Audubon’s 1813 description of the astonishing flight, and subsequent slaughter, of wild Passenger Pigeons in the woods by the Ohio River in Kentucky. Extinct since 1913, the once abundant Passenger Pigeon is emblematic of the destructive effect human activity can inflict upon the natural world. Part documentary, part natural history, part road-movie, the film combines Audubon’s eye-witness account of the devastating scenes of the birds’ massacre with contemporary scenes of key locations in Kentucky, where the immense flocks once filled the sky. The town of West Point, at the confluence of the Ohio and Salt rivers, is where Audubon observed a vast flight of Passenger Pigeons, numbering over a billion; the birds continually passing overhead ‘for three days in succession.’”

Jennifer hooper

the trAnsmigrAtion of the BAleAric sheArwAter

meDiA: ink on pAper

Jennifer Hooper is a London based visual artist. She studied painting and photography at Camberwell College of Art and Anatomy at UCL. She has exhibited internationally and travels regularly in an exploratory way, which informs her practice. Hooper’s paintings, drawings and photographs capture and present us with a subtle sense of the uncanny. Over the last couple of years through specific collaborative exhibitions and projects Hooper has endeavoured to highlight and respond to environmental concerns commenting upon our relationship to the natural world and our place within it.

inspirAtion BehinD this piece “Since antiquity in Mediterranean and Northern European cultures migrating birds have been seen as souls. Christian and Muslim literary traditions are rich in of stories and legends about birds as a metaphor for the human soul. Legends regarding the transmigration of birds into humans in Greek Mythology is documented in the battle between Memnon and Achilles when Memnons army transforms into birds. Belief in Soul birds was prevalent in Western European fishing communities up to the late 19th century; it was thought that certain species embodied the souls of fishermen and sailors, especially those who had drowned at sea. Similarly Muslim seafarers in the nineteenth century said that Shearwaters of the eastern Mediterranean were inhabited by damned souls. Aboard French ships both storm petrels and shearwaters were known as âmes damnées, lost souls that continued to inhabit and haunt the earth after death - a belief possibly suggested by their haunting nocturnal cooing.

The Balearic shearwater has been catalogued globally as Critically Endangered following IUCN criteria, on the basis of both its extremely rapid population decline and its small population size, which taken together could lead to the extinction of the species in less than 3 generations. The species breeds exclusively in the Balearic Islands and after the bulk of the population abandons the Mediterranean and congregates in the Atlantic waters of Western Europe and up to the South coast of the United Kingdom. The main threats identified to the Balearic shearwater are the predation of adults at colonies by introduced carnivores (feral cats, genets and pine martens), and being the by catch in fishing at sea. Acute pollution events, such as oil spills, also pose a very serious threat for the species, as its highly congregatory behaviour results in large numbers of casualties in that area. Other threats include the reduction of prey due to fishing overexploitation and anthropogenic environmental change and habitat degradation.”

Jessie Jermyn

up sticks

size: 70 x 40 cm

meDiA: mixeD meDiA (suitcAse, glAss Bottles AnD JArs, cerAmic pots, flowers, leAVes, grAss, twigs, moss, feAthers, stones, soil, wAter, photogrAphs)

Jessie Jermyn completed a BA in Fine Art Sculpture at Brighton University in 2012. She has since volunteered at the ONCA gallery and Lighthouse gallery, and for the artists Jamie McCartney and Kay Aplin in their respective studios.


“The piece is about negative consequences that I imagine fracking would have on natural habitats- in particular the countryside around Balcombe, if it were to go ahead. All the plants, soil, twigs etc. contained in the suitcase and jars have been collected from this area. The piece is intended to appear as though I am displaying the ‘possessions’ of an animal forced to pack up and leave its home because of this negative impact- it has collected together all the elements of its home which can be carried to take with it as it searches for a new place to live. The piece will be displayed under the stairs, as if the animal has chosen this as it’s new- if only temporary- home, and is trying unsuccessfully to hide itself away in an alien environment. It is ‘living out of a suitcase’, a few photos of home displayed on the wall but most of its possessions still packed away.“

John mitchell

mAny An imAge is the cAge in which A cAptiVe BirD sings

meDiA: sculpture with founD oBJects

John Mitchell was born in Glasgow and studied at Edinburgh College of Art, Yale University USA and Goldsmiths’ College, University of London. He had his first solo exhibition in London at Maureen Paley/Interim Art in 1986. Other solo exhibitions have been held nationally and internation-ally in Scotland, Canada, Ghana and The Czech Republic. His work has featured in a number of group exhibitions, notably at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, New Sculpture 88 and in 1990 his work was selected for the influential British Art Show touring exhibition along with the likes of Ian Davenport, Mona Hatoum, Gary Hume, Fiona Rae and Rachel Whiteread. Since then he has continued to exhibit in solo and group exhibitions. His most recent solo exhibition, ‘Taxonomical Musings’, was held at the Westbrook Gallery in London in April 2009.

Julie DoDD

forest: lungs of the worlD

size: 23 x 11 x 20 cm

meDiA: recycleD Books

Julie Dodd graduated with a first class BA honours degree in fine art in 2009 and spent the following year on a fellowship program. Since then she has worked independently as an installation artist, printmaker, bookmaker and altered book artist exhibiting her work regionally, nationally and internationally. Books and magazines feature heavily in Dodd’s work but she also recycles other discarded materials to form installations, bringing a new life and meaning to them. Her artwork is based on repetition and is inspired by pattern and shape found in nature. She often works in multiples, to mimic life, growth and regeneration.


“With the ever growing concern of climate change, this work is about the declining population of trees and the importance and impact they have on the planet. Carbon dioxide is probably the largest contributor to climate change, with human consumption being the major factor. Trees play an important role in the survival of our planet as they absorb carbon dioxide. Inspired by lung tissue, this miniature forest canopy emphasizes how trees are the lungs of the world.”

lorenzo m. Durán

zorro (feAtureD imAge); lirones; triDimensionAl

size: 40 x 37 cm; 30 x 23 cm; 40 x 30 cm

meDiA: leAVes, plAtAnus x hispAnicA; populus nigrA; plAtAnus x hispAnicA

Born in 1969, in Cáceres, Spain, and raised in Düsseldorf and Madrid, Lorenzo Duran has been living in Guadalajara since 2004. He is a self-taught artist who found out at age 36 that he had left aside two of his true passions: art and nature. His awareness came one day, in 2005, when unemployment appeared in his path, providing him with lots of time to think about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, and then he began living an existential metamorphosis which has turned him into a man who is increasingly aware of his inside, his shadow, and that attempts to communicate with all of that through one of the tools he knows best: art.


“Inspired by a caterpillar I decided to cut plant leaves the same way as other artists do with paper, that idea captivated my whole mind because it looked like a great opportunity to combine two of my true passions: art and nature. Due to the lack of information about the “leaf cutting art” I have developed my own technique, going through a long trial-and-error process until I found a good way of cutting my designs without spoiling the leaf. I use a surgical scalpel to cut the figure, removing the plant tissue until the image, previously drawn on paper and fixed to the leaf, appears. My geometric or figurative designs mostly come from my innate observation of nature and the personal metamorphosis I have gone through in recent years.”

nicolA mccArtney

Don’t Jump

size: 30 x 25 cm

meDiA: oil on cAnVAs

Nicola McCartney has exhibited throughout London and the UK, received public commissions and under taken residencies in Jordan and her home country. She is currently writing Death of the Artist (I.B. Tauris, forthcoming). Nicola graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2007, obtained a Master of Studies in Art History from Oxford University in 2008 and is currently a PhD candidate at Birkbeck, University of London.


“Don’t Jump is a portrait of a lone wolf caught in a moment of crisis. What will they do next, what is it they contemplate, is it so bad? Nicola McCartney is interested in the narratives between girl and animal in the traditional fairy-tale and the notion of the tragic heroine. All her animals are painted with a sensibility and the seriousness of a traditional portrait. Her quiet but colourful works evoke a sense of the familiar to engage the viewer and encourages us to rethink and project our own relationships, imagination and stories upon the characters depicted.”

penelope oAkley

Deer DreAms

size: 30 x 42 cm

meDiA: hAnD pAinteD with inks AnD Acrylics on pAper with post DigitAl BlenDs, eAch limiteD eDition print is then inDiViDuAlly hAnD finisheD with golD inks AnD 24 cArAt golD leAf.

The distinctive style of British-born artist Penelope Oakley is derived from over twenty years of exploration with painting, drawing, sculpture and digital art. The beauty of nature and the human spirit greatly inspire Penelope. Her work seeks to express not just external beauty but that which lies beyond and within. A love of languages - primarily Latin - and an interest in classics also very much informs her work. Connections between ancient wisdom, quantum physics, philosophy and spirituality are fundamental and bear considerable stylistic influence. Interpretations of her influences have varied from tribal to Indian, Maori to Aztec, suggesting a truly global sense and affirming her desire to cross boundaries of specific cultures and origin, distance and time. Her ethos is to question what our eyes tell us, as nothing is ever quite what it seems. Her work is an attempt to peel back these layers to reveal real vision – in a sense, the essence of who we really are. Based in Brighton since 2001, Penelope is the founder and curator of the collective Omnia Scroll exhibitions and shows work regularly in the UK and Europe.


“I dream of wide woodland space; Where majesty roams; Unimpeded in this place; By humankind invention. I dream of a safe dwelling; Where flora grows; Protected from the felling; With no apprehension. I dream of peace and quiet; Where birds sing; No daily biped riot; Disturbing nature’s comprehension.”

perDitA sinclAir

life (feAtureD imAge); unDergrowth

size: 99 x 129 cm; 50 x 75 cm

meDiA: oil AnD wAter-BAseD on cAnVAs

Perdita Sinclair studied fine art at the University of Wales Institute Cardiff. She has gone on to exhibit widely across the UK including in the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Royal Academy of Art and the Laing Gallery. Her work has been included in publications by the National Portrait Gallery amongst others and resides in collections in Europe, Canada and Hong Kong as well as the UK. This year so far Sinclair has exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery Gala, The Art Gemini Prize in London and in La linerie in France. From the autumn she will be part of a touring exhibition of British artists around China.


“In my practice I explore the division and crossover between physical and psychological states. My paintings are a study of how our minds and bodies relate to each other within the challenges of our modern environment and of the impact our evolutionary adaptations have on our existence. The heavily built-up paint against the exposed surface of the canvas and the tangle of line and colour in my paintings is evocative of consciousness being tied to flesh by strings of sensual experience. The linear nature of my pieces is suggestive and purposefully leaves much to the imagination.”

rAchel mAyeri

primAte cinemA: how to Act like An AnimAl

meDiA: ViDeo

Rachel Mayeri is a Los Angeles-based media artist working at the intersection of science and art. Her projects explore topics ranging from the history of special effects to the human animal. Her videos have shown at Sundance, Berlinale, dOCUMENTA (13), Ars Electronica, and MoMA PS1. Her work has been commissioned by The Arts Catalyst and Channel Four. She is the recipient of numerous grants, including the Wellcome Trust, Creative Capital, and the California Council for the Humanities. Mayeri is a guest curator of the Museum of Jurassic Technology and an Associate Professor of Media Studies at Harvey Mudd College.


“In the video, “How to Act like an Animal,” workshop participants in Los Angeles reenact a clip from a wildlife documentary. The clip depicts chimpanzees hunting a red colobus monkey and then eating the meat. The clip is excerpted from the 1995 National Geographic documentary The New Chimpanzees was shot at Jane Goodall’s research site in Gombe, Tanzania, and features the community she researched for over thirty years.

In the video, the documentary sequence plays through three times on one channel, while the performers are seen acting in real time in relation to the footage on a second channel. The first loop shows the workshop actors watching the monitor showing the clip. The second time through, the actors have been directed to simply “act like the chimpanzees.” In the third instance, actors are assigned roles of individual chimps, and the video is edited shot by shot. The idea behind the workshop and the video was to explore through embodied, improvisational exercises the similarities and differences between human and nonhuman primates. I am particularly interested in teasing apart wildlife films’ projections, anthropomorphic (animals are just like us) and zoomorphic (we are just like animals). Why are people so interested in watching wildlife films? Obviously films dramatize animal life in spectacular ways. Does it thrill us to imagine ourselves as animals as we watch them hunt, kill, eat, fight, mate, beg, share, ostracize? Who do we identify with on screen -- the group, an individual, everyone? Could we become more empathetic towards animals by acting like them -- or are movies poor vehicles for learning about animal behavior?”

sintiJA VikmAne

At the shore

size: 42 x 59 cm

meDiA: monotype

Sintija Vikmane is an artist, illustrator, printmaker and nature enthusiast. Vikmane is a graduate of many art schools abroad. Currently studying and working at the University of Hertfordshire.


“I was inspired by the exile theme of this exhibition. This artwork pictures a shoreline with a flock of birds leaving it. The monotype was made observing nature and Chinese ink painting.”

suky Best

wilDlife DocumentAry #7; wilDlife DocumentAry #8meDiA: 4:3 sD ViDeo

Suky Best is a visual artist, working with animation, print and installation; she has exhibited nationally and internationally. Commissioned works include, Early Birds, an Animate Projects commission for Channel 4 in association with Arts Council England, recently included in Extinct at the Natural History Museum, and Assembly at Tate Britain, London. Past commissions include, About Running, for The Great North Run; Stone Voices, for the Devils Glen in Ireland; From the Archive, for University College Hospital London; The Park in Winter, for Arts Council England and Horses for Great Ormond Street Hospital. She has exhibited at the Baltic Gateshead and Art Now Lightbox at Tate Britain and has had solo exhibitions and publications, including The Return of the Native at Pump House Gallery London, and Wild Interior at Danielle Arnaud Contemporary Art, London.


“These films examine the technology of moving representation. Wildlife Documentary #7 shows flipbooks of seagulls derived from video footage have been through a digital editing process, are constructed, and choreographed reconstructed and then re-filmed. The flipbooks remind us that film/video technology still relies on an illusion of movement. The cinematic device of a film within a film, often to imply a past event, is mirrored in the two points of view in the video. Using a pre cinematic device within a video completes a cycle of technology. The images are video stills, and their re-presentation on video both allows us to see the images ‘come to life’, while denying any direct encounter with the physical form of the books, much less their living subjects. Accompanying sound is released when the flipbooks are operated increasing the sense of magic at the illusion encountered.

Offering a counterpoint to the drama and spectacle of conventional wildlife documentaries, this work elicits the same tendency to focus on those aspects of animal behaviour, which suggest human frailties and emotions. By showing the antithesis of the drama and spectacle of conventional wildlife documentaries, this work elicits the same tendency to focus on those aspects of animal behaviour, which suggest human frailties and emotions.

Wildlife Documentary #8 A short loop of a starling, showing the same action repeated over and over. As you watch it, the repetition seems like a nervous twitch of neurotic behaviour. The monitor is placed in the window to make the birds containment and isolation from nature more poignant.”

susAn richArDson

1) the white Doe; 2) thylAcine

3) ...thoughts were like animals in the forest

meDiA: poetry

Susan Richardson is a Wales-based poet, performer and educator, specialising in environmental, wildlife and conservation themes. Her first two collections, Creatures of the Intertidal Zone and Where the Air is Rarefied, a collaboration with visual artist Pat Gregory, are published by Cinnamon Press. She regularly performs her work at literary and environmental festivals throughout the UK, and has run ecopoetry workshops for a wide range of organisations including WWF and Friends of the Earth. Her third collection, skindancing, themed around human-animal metamorphosis and exploring our dys/functional relationship with the wild, will be published in 2015. www.susanrichardsonwriter.co.uk


All three poems will appear in Susan’s new collection, skindancing, due to be published in 2015.

“(1) The White Doe: The White Doe was inspired by a French fairytale in which a princess, as a result of a witch’s curse, is transformed into a deer and condemned to spending her life in the woods instead of happily-ever-after in a palace with a prince. In my poem, the doe-princess relishes the freedom afforded by woodland life and is determined to remain exiled there for as long as possible. There are many linguistic transformations within the poem that mirror the metamorphic subject-matter: language slips and slides and shapeshifts, with verbs becoming nouns and adjectives morphing into verbs.

(2) Thylacine: The thylacine, a striped carnivorous marsupial also known as the Tasmanian tiger, is believed to have become extinct in the wild in the 1930s through a combination of culling, habitat loss, disease and predation by domestic dogs. However, numerous vivid yet unverified sightings of the thylacine, not only in Tasmania but also in mainland Australia, continue to this day.

(3) ...thoughts were like animals in the forest: A quote from Carl Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections inspired, and ultimately ended up as the title of, this poem. Through an extended metaphor, I wanted to explore the theme of loss – of both imagination and habitat.”

tessA fArmer AnD seAn DAniels

the Den of iniQuity

meDiA: ViDeo

Tessa Farmer was born in Birmingham in 1978 and lives and works in London. She studied at the University of Oxford where she received a BFA and an MFA. Her work has been shown in galleries and museums worldwide and is included in the collections of MONA, Tasmania and The Saatchi Gallery, London. Recent exhibitions include ‘Unwelcome Visitors’ at the Holburne Museum Bath, The ‘Red Queen’ at MONA, Tasmania and ‘Victoriana’ at Guildhall Art Gallery, London. In 2007 she was artist in residence at the Natural History Museum London and was nominated for The Times/ The South Bank Show Breakthrough Award.


‘The Den of Iniquity’ is the third stop motion animation made by Tessa Farmer and Sean Daniels. It was commissioned by English Heritage for the 2010 exhibition ‘Extraordinary Measures’ at Belsay Hall, Northumberland. It is an extension of a large installation by Tessa Farmer, ‘A Darker Shade of Grey’, that was sited in vitrines in an outdoor grotto in the gardens of Belsay hall. Exploring ideas of survival of the fittest and symbiosis, in this piece the fairies found an ally in local grey squirrels, also an invasive ‘alien’ species introduced over a hundred years ago from America. A symbiotic relationship formed and together they attacked squirrels and other local fauna. Northumberland has a much loved surviving population of native red squirrels. Threatened by the far more successful grey squirrels, the locals trap the greys and cull them in a bid to conserve the remaining reds.

The Den of Iniquity imagines the fairies’ lair inside the moss covered walls of the grotto, where construction of a skullship takes place, a captured mole is skinned and eaten and stolen birds’eggs are incubated to later be fed to their grey squirrel army.

thomAs keyes

following the roe

size: 40 x 63 cm

meDiA: Birch smoke on roe Deer pArchment

Thomas Keyes was a graffiti writer in Belfast before he moved to England to study Fine Art and History of Art at Newcastle University. While there he began to take an interest in living off the land and foraging in particular. Keyes then moved up to the Highlands of Scotland and settled in the Black Isle where he has been creating art from foraged materials including road kill animals, mushrooms and plant fibres.


“My work is an exploration of my physical and cultural relationship with the land using materials foraged from my surroundings and processes historically grounded in the space I inhabit. The birch tree provides sap in spring, leaves to midsummer with wood, bark and tar throughout the year as well as perennial mushrooms for tinder that were still in recorded use in church rituals through to the 18th century in Ireland. The fire lighting capability of this tree and its associated fungi helped our ancestors to colonise Northern Europe. The roe deer is one of few animals never to be tamed that has also adapted to live alongside humans. I am fascinated by their ghost like ability to melt into shadows and thread their lives through our movements. Both the birch and the roe quite literally lead me in my creation of work, both art and food, a chance discovery of road kill often initiates the process. I create parchment from the skin and build up the colours with layers of birch smoke. This allows me to create an image of the roe deer and birch trees made entirely from themselves.”


EVENTS PROGRAMME

Image: detail Lungs of the World, by Julie Dodd


Supported by

With special thanks to the generous donations of all ONCA’s crowdfunding supporters.

www.onca.org.uk

Exile: A Living Of Forest Exhibition Guide

Documents

animal gaze

animal selves

animal theme

animal eyes

variety of projects

fine art

onca gallery

born free foundation