4 minute read
Look Around
Words By Elizabeth Fleur Willis
It is time to open our eyes. It is time to unfurl our fingers like the fern, breathe in deep the sweet scented air and taste the earth beneath our feet. It is time to look around and notice the unnoticed, the overlooked and the forgotten. Our planet is filled with a cornucopia of incredible objects which grow under our noses, laid by the wayside, dismissed as useless or whose reputations are tarnished by negative terms such as weeds and trash. It is time to challenge the entrenched ideas of what is truly useful and desirable, whether practically or aesthetically.
Molly Tucker, Ellie Irons, May Hands, Mia Middleton, Marga Karayol and Christi York have taken elements of their local environment and elevated the overlooked, the unwanted and perhaps even the invisible world around them to create deeply ritualistic, bold and unique artistic practices.
I myself, have dedicated my own practice and writing to raising awareness for the beauty of nature and by extension, to disrupt the complacent consciousness in society regarding it. As you will have seen in the previous pages, I have chosen to focus on artists who share this common goal, and through extraordinary means, have found practical ways to introduce this into their methodology. Through the discovery of these women’s innovative ideas, thrilling experimental methods and vibrant output, I hope that I can inspire you to similarly incorporate concepts from the enlightened foraging fringes into your everyday consideration. Through highlighting the capability of plants, to creating pigments, branches to build fine art baskets, and found objects to fill the gallery space, ancient traditions and new entrepreneurial possibilities regarding our relationship with the physical world around us are illuminated. Shining a bright inviting light on the potential around you could not only shift your own consciousness but hopefully join the growing trend toward shifting our engagement with the world around us.
At the World Economic Forum 2019, David Attenborough said:
If we choose to make decisions in our own lives that minimise wastage, for example, foraging local herbs and greens or growing our own, rather than buying and supporting unsustainable super farmed produce, we can set a base for leading a less wasteful existence. Once we have this base, by extending this lifestyle, we can start to look at every element of our lives and make changes on many levels. We could take the waste of the world and upcycle it, repurpose it and elevate these objects to become beautiful and/or useful. Mia Middleton takes discarded items and sets them within the white walls of the gallery space, giving these found objects a new life away from their discarded wasteful past, imbued with a deep discourse and higher intention for thought provocation.
We could take wild elements from our surroundings and create intricate works like those of Christi York, who challenges us to consider the complexity of the natural world through the form of a basket, a useful tool known to all, now repurposed to create a change of perspective on its viewers when presented in the Fine Art context. The creation of thoughtful dialogue with items available to all, either on city streets, in gardens or forests, is an option for everyone. It is time to open our eyes and stop looking directly at our feet as we walk this planet, but instead start looking around our feet. Daily discoveries are all around us. Similar to these women, we have a chance to engage and build an emotional connection to the planet, breaking the routines supported by consumerist practices, conventional convenience and societal systems which have so far done great damage to our ecosystems and indigenous environments. It is important to remember the forgotten; the ancient traditions, our cultural heritage and methods of production used by our foremothers and forefathers. It should be everyone’s goal to overcome complacency toward entrenched domestic systems, such as fashion; whose often forgotten origins are invoked through the textile production process shown by May Hands. Similarly, the ceramic industry’s history is conjured up from the depths of the earth through the use of wild hand sculpted clay, ritualistically created by Marga Karayol. These works remind us of the legacy behind household objects, which, in western culture have been superseded by shops such as Ikea and Primark.
Across all of these artists, the overarching similarity between their practices is their conveyance of the emotional connection that has been encouraged toward their relationship with the earth through their unique art forms. Connecting with the spirits of the soil through Karayol’s work, or exploring the richness of colour pigments through using natural materials shown by Ellie Irons work creates a jubilant and joyful feeling for me which I hope to have shared with you. I see the process of Molly Tucker, who by taking geological specimens and marvelling at their unique and silent qualities, finds magic in the unnoticed or invisible. Because of this, I am reminded of my childhood’s curiosity and wonderment at the world we inhabit and, as an adult, I am truly grateful to connect with not only myself in a deeper way, but also to the magical world around me.
It is time to open our eyes and see what is waiting patiently to be found.
THEEARTISSUE
