DARK FLOWERINGS Art, inevitably, is involved with the passage of time and place. It is necessarily about the world and our relationship with it. That world is changing faster than ever before, approaching a tipping point beyond which the effects of environmental change may well be irreversible. The art world itself is becoming increasingly precarious, subject not only to market forces but also to global events and shifting fashions. Artists must find their own position and the direction in which to look in this evolving world. Some choose to enter a self-referential loop with the art of the past, others to find a means for transgressing norms, others yet seek to challenge and admonish those who are engaged in the headlong despoliation of the planet. Alexandra Haeseker comes into that third category, with a considerable body of work over many years that seeks to highlight aspects of our threatened ecological nexus, working with techniques that push the boundaries of art, often at a scale that challenges the perceptions of those who encounter it. In the project that culminates in the exhibition at the Vernon Public Art Gallery she offers her response to the natural world that is in grave danger. Each of us has a deeply personal relationship with that natural world. After all, that is where we live. Whether our homes are made in noisy and crowded cities or deep in the wilderness we are surrounded by other living organisms. The ability of nature to reassert its place in the man-made world is fascinating and instructive. In the aftermath of WW2 in England it was common to see large swathes of Rosebay Willowherb growing on the rubble of bombed out buildings, hiding the tangles of rubble and broken lives, bringing softness and colour to the remnants of devastation. The plant, known in North America as Fireweed, together with purple Buddleia, provided not only a source of joy in dark times but also a source of food for insects and butterflies. Now those ruins have their turn been replaced by high rise offices and apartment blocks, the roofs of which are patrolled by Peregrine Falcons more accustomed to wild forests and quarries; they are there to keep the numbers of pigeons under some sort of control. Foxes, and more recently badgers, are now commonly seen in suburban night streets. In Llandudno in North Wales the wild goats that live on the nearby headland have started to stray into the streets and gardens of this small seaside town. But all is not well, as the negative effects on the global environmental become more evident, and as the industrialisation of our world continues unabated. Looking closely at the natural world in the deeply rural area of Wales where I live it is clear that much has changed over the past quarter century. While some of this is due to the wider impact of climate change, much more seems to be due to the changes in local farming practice. Encouraged by the agro-chemical companies the formerly rich and sustainable eco-system of arable fields, with lush mixed grasses and established hedges, has been turned into huge maize fields of chemically fertilised soil, stripped of the shelter provided by dividing hedges. This practice involves treating the whole field with aggressive herbicide before planting seed beneath sheets of plastic that is supposedly biodegradable, but which degrades into micro plastics that persist in the soil or wash into the watercourses.
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