Composting Estate seminar: Pat Naldi and Julie Marsh 24 January 2020

COMPOSTING ESTATE
A series of seminars examining processes and materials of composition and decomposition of site and place.
Room A002 Central Saint Martins 
10.30am  – 1.00pm
24 January 2020 
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Pat Naldi
Who Owns the Sea?





Who Owns the Sea? is the second in a trilogy of projects that investigate territorial ownership, and its political, societal and psychological impact by and for humans. The first in the trilogy, the video work Who Owns the Land? (2016) takes as its starting point the ad coelum doctrine - a principle of property law in the UK. Originating in the 13th century, this ancient law proclaims the extent of land ownership beyond that of the surface. Although now acceptable in a limited form, real property/estate encompasses airspace, wild animals, trees, plants, flowers, water, mines and minerals above, on, and below the surface of the land. The video work probes land ownership and its societal consequences on public rights, ecological systems, power, and value. Filmed on location across the high moorland and fell landscape of Northumberland and Cumbria (UK), on land surface, horizon, and below ground in disused lead mines, this work, with a view to make transparent the UK’s most valuable asset, asks: Who owns the land? Who owns the ground below? Who owns the sky above? 

 The second in the trilogy of projects Who Owns the Sea? (the third will be Who Owns the Sky?), has in its early stages of research been informed and influenced by the territorial waters surrounding Gibraltar a politically contested British Overseas Territory located at the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula. A highly contested stretch of sea since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and a near daily site of military, and police incursions resulting in political bickering, these waters are continuously shrinking due to the land reclamation undertaken by both Gibraltar and Algeciras in Spain. Future research and production of a strand of Who Owns the Sea? will be sited on the Arctic Ocean. Acting as ground zero in climate change, the focus of the research will question, explore and address the critical environmental, political, and human impact of sea ownership as experienced through the decreasing Arctic sea ice cap, and its effect on ecosystems, weather patterns, and territorial waters. The Arctic sea ice cover which helps determine the Earth’s climate, fell to its second lowest level in 2019. Humanity is dependent on the ocean and cryosphere. It interconnects with the climate system through water, energy, and carbon. The impact of this melting ice cover is also political, military, and most of all economic as several nations vie for ownership and control over its greater navigable waters – a new Northwest Passage – and the opportunities this will present. Who Owns the Sea? will address these global implications through the local. The research and production expedition to the Arctic Ocean is scheduled for June 2021.

 Pat Naldi is a lecturer in MA Contemporary Photography; Practices and Philosophies at Central Saint Martins.


http://www.patnaldi.co.uk/


Julie Marsh
Assembly at Old Kent Road Mosque
fig 1

fig 2

fig 3

fig 4
For the approaching estates seminar series I presented Assembly at Brick Lane Mosque, a site-specific performance comprising of a 1:1 scaled moving floor projection with surround sound. Assembly used site-integrity as a working methodology - a particular but original mode of site-specific practice that potentiates a dynamic exchange between site, artist, device and audience. Site-integrity repositions the act of representation from its retrospective or projective dimensions towards that which is performed and is experiential. Assembly was made respecting the religious and cultural rules of the mosque; the camera was not permitted to film in front of the people praying, nor could it show their faces. Subsequently, a mechanical rig was constructed to film from above, at a constant speed from the entrance to the Mihrab in the main prayer hall and female prayer room (see fig.1) The pre-recorded footage of prayer was then projected back into both sites using the same automated device. The controlled motorisation of the projection re-traced the movement of the recorded image, giving the effect of only the frame moving through each physical space, constantly revealing and concealing the actual site below, temporarily dissolving the religious/social boundaries of the mosque (see fig.2). 

 In September 2019 Assembly moved to a new site; Old Kent Road Mosque renovated from a former pub in Southwark (see fig.3). Old Kent Road Mosque is due for demolition/redevelopment to build a new Islamic centre for the community. Assembly will perform both the main prayer hall and the female prayer hall before the building is demolished in late 2020. The female congregation at Old Kent Road Mosque have built a large, active community, organising many support groups and events. Their prayer space is of equal size and capacity to the main prayer hall directly above. An LCD monitor connects the two spaces as the imam is broadcast live in the female space (see fig.4). Identical rigs will be made in both spaces to reflect the unison of the two congregations via dual moving projections performing both prayer sites in synchronized time and space. 

 Interviews and research findings from Assembly are being used within a collaborative project led by architect Shahed Saleem and the V&A for the Architecture Biennale in 2020. This project will explore themes of immigration, hybridity and multi-culturalism through three Mosques in London; Brick Lane, Old Kent Road and Harrow. The findings have also been disseminated via the following conferences and journal articles.

 Conferences:
• ‘Investigating the interface between Muslim prayer sites and artistic interventions’, Fourteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society, 2019 (Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon) 
• ‘Exploring the interface between art and sacred spaces’ Sacred Spiritual Secular Conference, 2019 (School of Architecture- University of Westminster) which led to being nominated for the A+C award (Art and Christianity). 
Journal articles: 
• ‘Investigating the Interface between Muslim Prayer Sites and Artistic Interventions' The Arts in Society Research Network Journal 
• ‘Assembly: Performing the materiality of Muslim prayer spaces’ Scene, intellect journal 
• ‘SITE-INTEGRITY’ The Journal for Artistic Research (JAR) https://www.jar-online.net/exposition/abstract/site-integrity-dynamic-exchange-between-site-artist-device-and-audience

Julie Marsh is an artist filmmaker, researcher and senior lecturer at the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM), University of Westminster. Julie studied at London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London, completing a PhD in 2017.

 Information about the full series:
https://sensingsite.blogspot.com/p/composting-estate-series-of-seminars.html

Composting Estate seminar: Ingrid Pumayalla and Greer MacKeogh 10 January 2020

COMPOSTING ESTATE
A series of seminars examining processes and materials of composition and decomposition of site and place.

Room A002 Central Saint Martins 
10.30am  – 1.00pm
10 January 2020

Ingrid Pumayalla
Gathering Organic Matter to Fertilise the Land

Gathering Matter to Fertilize the Land is a presentation of three different site-specific works completed in 2019 in Trujillo (Peru), Stokkoya (Norway) and Leipzig (Germany). They form a trilogy and are linked through narratives of displacement and mythology, also drawing thematically on rural migration as a global phenomenon. These video works invite contemporary audiences to reflect on our human connections with and responsibility towards nature.

 The approach I use in my practice is to study the myths and rituals of pre-Columbian cultures in the Andes and the Amazon in order to address the collective loss of nature. The hair (cf. above) is a visio-cultural custom, a repetitive concept and symbol, which I use to state the strength of the female identity in the Andes and its capacity to pass on knowledge. 

 i) Cantos al Agua is a video-performance made at the sites of Santo Domingo-Huaca el Brujo (100-350 AD) and the city of Chan Chan (850 AD), the first settlements of human habitation being found here on the shore of the Chicama river and dated to 14000 BC. This is the area where the city of Trujillo stands at present. At the archaeological site of el Brujo, the mummified body of the Lady of Cao, the first female governor and priest from the Moche Civilization was found in 2006. Nearby is the Huaca el Brujo, a construction made with adobe, standing 17 metres tall and bearing an open cut that was made during the arrival of the Spanish to the area. The site of Santo Domingo was a ceremonial site at which were found several drawings and symbols of animals and water. In 2016 the largest triple spiral (650 AD) was destroyed because a tractor passed over it, driven by ‘land invaders’. There is a 60,000-inhabitant housing project outside the area at the moment, initiated by the local government and due to the increasing population coming from the Andes towards the coastal cities. The actions used in this work are based on the acts of weaving and chanting as a language to make offerings to the wounded landscape and mourning what has been lost in this land. 

 ii) On the island of Stokkøya, Norway, there was a landslide that separated the island from the mainland for a period of a month in September of 2019.  Three artists are invited every year to this community in order to produce a collaborative piece responding to the landscape and site of Stokkoya. The Bigda 2.0 Project along with the Afjord municipality aim to enhance the rural community, developing infrastructures, making the area more attractive to people who would like to move back to this area from metropolitan conurbations. The increase of heavy industrialization on the land and because of the wind farms used to create clean energy issues have emerged within the natural balance of this place. According to the locals these caused the recent landslide. The piece was made by responding to the event using found material from the landslide. We took the metal from the distorted crash barriers to create a public sculpture along the road opposite to Bygda 2.0. The sculptures were presented with a sound piece by the artists, reading social media output created by the locals when building strategies in order to access the island.

 ii) In August of 2019 more than 2 millions of hectares were burned down during fires in the Amazonian rainforest. The fires were started because of the agricultural industrialization of the area aimed at raising cattle for meat consumption. As a response to this I created the video 'Where did the creatures from the forest go?' (20’ 03”). The video presents the myth of Curiwarmi. “The myth tells that Curiwarmi (gold woman) saw the Amazon on fire and she ran to the river to save her life. After a while, because of sadness, she fell sleep. She woke up later on the shore of the Makkelberg Lake, in Saxony, Germany” The video performance includes the creation of knitted pieces in order to narrate the myth performatively using the method through which the old Peruvians used to relate stories in the Quechua language, expressing them through knitting, textiles and pottery.

 Videos:
Where did the creatures from the forest go? 
https://vimeo.com/383474498
password: Curiwarmi 

 Cantos al agua
https://vimeo.com/362561836  
password: Chanchan 

https://www.stokkoyart.com
https://www.ingridpumayalla.com/solace-project

 Ingrid uses performance, photography, moving image and installations to address migration and diasporas, and how the loss of home re-structures and transforms identity. Her work explores the role of art in transforming and repairing loss. Ingrid is a recent graduate of MA Fine Art at CSM and has recently completed residencies in Norway and Germany.


Greer MacKeogh
Acts of Hospitality
In the time and space provided to me by Composting Estate, I gave an account of my PhD practice and research. At the time, I had just switched from part-time, to full-time research. I was grateful for the chance to review my work-to-date, my work-in-progress and to receive feedback and questions from the group, that since have helped to deepen my research. 

 My research, Acts of hospitality, the role of guest and host as art practice, centres on my experiences as artist, guest and host in three sites in Co. Roscommon in Ireland.  As an artist, when working in community-based contexts, I have often embodied the role of either the ‘guest’ - as outsider and innovator, or the ‘host’ – as initiator or facilitator. In this research I endeavour to move between the position of guest and host, interchanging and exploring these perspectives. I understand hospitality as a kind of movement that flows between these subject positions, and a means to account for the various subtle transitions.

I have identified the hotel as an ideal site to explore how these roles of guest and host are played out, contested and expressed. Under the title The Hotel, I set out to trace the complex dynamics of hospitality in rural communities in Ireland, while questioning what might be revealed about wider notions of hospitality on a national and international scale.

 My enquiry consists of a body of practical and site-specific research in which the roles of guest and host are explored, disrupted and expanded to produce emergent forms of hospitality. A praxis, of building relationships over time, while exploring the historical and cultural conditions that lie beneath or behind Irish identity, is central to my research into hospitality as art practice. 

 Greer MacKeogh is an artist-researcher studying for her PhD at UAL.

 Information about the full series:
https://sensingsite.blogspot.com/p/composting-estate-series-of-seminars.html




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