A Different LENS: 

Terraqua

A Different LENS is a digital map. It uses locative media and literature to explore storytelling. Our materials are people, places, and stories. 

For Terraqua we are bringing you an exploration of estuary locations in Brazil and the UK. This will be uploaded onto our digital map A Different LENS in May 2021 as part of the associated program for Estuary Festival 2021. I am recording our storytelling through this blog and look forward to sharing our experiences with you.

Terraqua Co-creative estuary stories using locative media

Terraqua is a project delivered through Thread and Word a group led by the artist Elspeth ( Billie ) Penfold in Collaboration with the Brazilian artist Carlos Queiroz. The stories from Terraqua will be shared on the web app A Different LENS designed by Cgeomap.eu. You can find our map here:

A Different LENS

For Terraqua we will create new entries uploaded through A Different Lens. It is a collaboration between Kent-based artists and artists in Brazil ( Vitória ). Our co-creators from Brazil are artists and academics from UFES (Federal University of Espirito Santo (Brazil) / Razuras Geografias Marginals (linguagem poetic movimiento). They are responding to the environmental disaster/crime that occurred in 2015 in the city of Mariana (Minas Gerais). It destroyed all the marine life and the biodiversity of the river over almost 700km, reaching its estuary, which is in that city.

We will be supported in our storytelling by the Scrapstore in Ramsgate. Their members from EastKent Mencap will be part of the co-creation and will be making flags using recycled materials from the Scrapstore. These will be created through crafternoons organised by East Kent Mencap. We are hoping to hold a physical exhibition (Covid permitting) of the flags together with binaural recordings of stories contributed by authors who support The Margate Bookie. 

Our ambition is that through juxtaposition and layering, alternative stories and perspectives of the past, present, and future can be unearthed and exposed to a wide audience. We will create locative media experiences that ‘tinker with our locks, thereby putting our inner worlds in contact with the outer world’ (Lucy Frears) 

Terraqua is being created with the generous support of the Margate Bookie, The Work and Play Scrapstore East Kent Mencap with funding from Arts Council England.

You can follow Terraqua on Facebook : @Thread and Word

 

"SOPLO"

An introduction to The Supercluster Fire-pit and my first experience as a Fire-Keeper

I was invited by Fred Adam , Geert Vermeire and Stephanie Whitelaw to become a fire-keeper around the supercluster fire-pit last Friday evening. 

Image Fred Adam

The plan is to bring together friends and contributors to the Earthlings Summer School hosted at Kings College last July and to keep the fire of those encounters burning and, hopefully, create new experiences, exchanges and encounters. A school reunion if you like but with additional elements. These can all be found in the fire-keepers guide. I decided to write this and describe my experience as I really wanted to record my first visit to the campfire.

This was my gratitude from the Earth  

B. Fasicularia , an Andean plant 

My gratitude : Sometimes we don't see or appreciate what is in front of us.

I had been walking around looking and thinking about what I would bring as my earth totem and I suddenly realised that it was there right in front of my eyes. It was outside my studio door and yet I was spending my time looking for it on walks elsewhere. I think it found me.... This happened last Tuesday ....I have had this plant from Chile for the last four years and it did this. You could easily miss it as it is tucked inside the grasses. It is alchemy as the green colour of the foliage has been transformed to a bright hue with blueish edging. I am wondering if it was the heat of the sun this summer.

with gratitude to Fred Adam for introducing my fasicularia into the campfire

My topic: was to reference Cecilia Vicuña's small sculptures titled Precarios.  Cecilia Vicuña has developed her practice of making precarios these are small scuptural pieces of collected found fragments which develop into a broader conversation about political struggle, the displacement and erasure of indigenous people in a time of increasing globalism, and the alarming, ever more apparent effects of climate change on the natural world. 

 I then invited us around the campfire to engage in making some playful sculptural pieces from found objects. I suggested we should use  SON QON, this is a quechua word meaning the energy of the heart, to guide us as we look around us for the overlooked. 

We then introduced these to each other ending with a  "soplo" a soft sound a whisper if you like that might represent the pieces we made.

I am interested in indigenous practices, poetry , weaving and storytelling and I do believe that by re-visiting ancient practices we can re-imagine how we relate to the earth, to each other and perhaps re-imagine how we would like to engage with the wider world. I am really enthused and interested to see where these meetings might lead us to next.

In the meantime you might like to check out this event next Tuesday which is free and, I think , very connected to some of the ideas associated with our fire-pit actions :

Open School East