Dear all,

* apologies for inevitable cross-postings*

UK/ London based members of the forum might be interested in a performance lecture and workshop 'Fieldworkings’ with artist Luce Choules that the Royal Holloway Centre for the GeoHumanities is holding on 12/12/2017 in 11 Bedford Square, London (room 1-03) from 3-5 pm.

Further information is below.
Any questions please do get in touch, for further information please go to http://geohumanitiesforum.org and if you would like to join a mailing list to keep informed about future GeoHumanities events in London please do let me know.


best wishes

Harriet


Fieldworkings with Luce Choules - a workshop and performance lecture
12/12/2017
3-5 pm
1-03 Bedford Square



PERFORMANCE LECTURE - Guide74

Guide74 is an artist project exploring spatial dynamics in the Chamonix valley, Mont-Blanc massif and Aiguilles Rouges using experimental fieldwork and documentation. Using a format of photographic image, spoken word and physical objects, Guide74 leads an audience on an expedition to the Alpine regions of France – a journey of many parts exploring ideas of interrelated geographies and events. Situated within artistic practice, a new reading of this elevated landform emerges where elements flow together, appear static, and move against one another. Through the presentation we take to the hills, climb toward peaks, locate water sources, record the treeline, and sense animals, exploring the metaphysical elements that make up the valley and peaks of the Chamonix Mont-Blanc area, and enter an environment of natural and managed ecosystems – mediated and curated landscapes.


WORKSHOP

“Nature as a whole is a system in which information disintegrates progressively ... Human beings struggle against this natural entropy not only by receiving information but also storing and passing it on...” (Vilém Flusser, Towards a Philosophy of Photography).

As a starting point to the workshop, please bring an object you have made or found that suggests or indicates a weathering process – past, present or future. You will be asked to introduce this object and its context to the group. During the session, we will discuss the erosion and disintegration of earth systems, and collapsing structures in the Alpine environment.


OVERVIEW

Choules is a UK-based artist operating from field centres in France and Spain, and works internationally. Using still and moving image, performance and sculpture, she is interested in the movement and behaviour of animate and inanimate objects – her work observing fragility and the environmental shift in human nature. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society; and presents academic papers on the subject/object of fieldwork in artistic practice in addition to a series of public performances and artist talks on a new environmental (re)turn. Choules is curator of an international esparto project, and coordinates the itinerant artist network TSOEG.org

ARTIST STATEMENT

“Using still and moving image, performance and sculpture, I am interested in the movement and behaviour of animate and inanimate objects – my work observing fragility and the environmental shift in human nature. Image capture and moving narratives are fundamental to our relationship and appreciation of the Earth. In the pursuit of data what is lost becomes a gap in recognition – my research suggests this interstice has the potential to become an interval of insight, experience and imagination, that extends a geomorphic thinking of place as past action and future motion set in the here-and-now. My research draws parallels across Arts and Geography fieldwork methods; and contributes to a wider discussion on instability and environmental change, using experiential fieldwork methods to monitor erratic performances in the landscape. Against the pervasive anthropocentric view, this research investigates how the natural environment with all its fragments is itself an act – a mobility of material already activated. This work adds to current debate involving the recording and documentation of performance and live event in the arts, exploring slow capture in an age of acceleration at the intersection between visual arts practice and physical geography, to investigate image-making as a form of material transformation and transportation.”

BIOG

Luce Choules is a UK-based artist operating from field centres in France and Spain, and works internationally. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, coordinating expeditions and fieldwork planning activities as part of the annual Explore event for over a decade. Luce is currently artist/curator of international project ‘Esparto’(2016-), with touring exhibition, symposium and trilingual publication; has recently returned from the US opening of her Rabbit Island residency exhibition with performance lecture at DeVos Art Museum, Michigan (2016-17); and her Bideford Black commission (shown Devon 2015, Lincoln 2016) has been selected for the upcoming touring performance exhibition ‘Documents, Alternatives’ (UK/Australia 2017-18). Major long-term projects include: ‘Guide74’, ‘Estudio de Campo’, ‘Navigating the Erratic’, ‘The Insurmountable and Unknowable Object’, and ‘Mountain Festival’. Luce founded and coordinates the itinerant artist network TSOEG.org (2015-date) making opportunities for members to meet through public events and digital dialogue. Her published work is held in many public collections.