Ecologies of Art and Making

Hub 67, Rothbury Rd, Hackney Wick, London 

Date: Monday, February 17th- Friday, 21st 2020, 10am-4pm

A 5-day interdisciplinary workshop with Ellie Doney and Nick Laessing for the Slade School of Fine Art

This course aims to introduce students to an expanded understanding of ecologies, introducing concepts of agency in the context of local and planetary scales of connectedness. Through engagement with making across the disciplines of art, technology and the built environment, the course will explore the connectedness of materials, practices, individuals and communities. Facilitated by PhD researchers, students will be encouraged to experimentally explore notions of ecologies through their own experiences and stories, leading to the development of a portfolio, and the hosting of a group exhibition.

Photo credit: Ellie Doney

Hydrogen Utopia?

Delfina Foundation, Science, Technology, Society Programme

Date: Tuesday, 3 Dec 2019

Join our UK associate artist Nick Laessing for a conversation on energy utopias and the potential of hydrogen as a locally-produced sustainable energy source in an age of ecological and climatic emergencies. With invited speakers Rokiah Yaman (Project Manager, LEAP closed-loop technologies), Simon Ings (Culture Editor, New Scientist) and Dr Chiara Ambrosio (History and Philosophy of Science, UCL).

Nick will also introduce his own research exploring our relationships with technology and usership in a time of planetary urgencies, followed by a demonstration of his hydrogen kitchen, with the chance to try some food cooked on its stove.

Hydrogen kitchen is a work consisting of a water electrolysis system, that decomposes water into oxygen and hydrogen gas, and a specially-constructed gas stove. Made in collaboration with the Chemical Engineering department at University College London, it aims towards a low cost and open source alternative to conventional hydrogen systems.

Photo credit: Ollie Harrop/ Delfina Foundation

Source: http://www.delfinafoundation.com/whats-on/...

Politics of Food Book Launch

Delfina Foundation

Date: Monday, 25 November 2019

Over the last six years, through its eponymous thematic programme, The Politics of Food, Delfina Foundation has been at the forefront of supporting, developing and providing a platform for creative practitioners and researchers interrogating the global politics and ethics of food production, distribution and consumption.

Out of this renowned programme comes Politics of Food, co-published by Delfina Foundation and Sternberg Press, an important document of current research and thinking around this subject with contributions by prominent artists, academics, activists and chefs.

Through interviews, essays and artist contributions, the book critically assesses and illuminates ways in which the arts can confront food-related issues, including the infrastructure of global and local food systems, alternatives and sustainability, climate and ecology, health and policy, science and biodiversity, and identity and community.

This book is neither a record of Delfina Foundation’s work in this area, nor a comprehensive survey of all issues or artists working with food. Instead the book presents some of the most pioneering ideas and projects around the subject, focusing specifically on four key areas which serve as sections into which the book’s content is structured: Food and Identity; Food Journeys; Food Futures; and Food and Hospitality.

Special thanks to Umur for the generous support towards the printing of this book.

DETAILS

Editors
Aaron Cezar (Founding Director, Delfina Foundation) and Dani Burrows (Director of Strategy, Delfina Foundation, 2013-2017)

Texts
Harry G. West, Raj Patel and Tim Lang

Conversations
Ferran Adrià and Marta Arzak; Tamara Ben-Ari and Asunción Molinos Gordo; Mark Hix and Patrick Holden; Michel Pimbert and Tomáš Uhnák; Michael Vazquez and Michael Rakowitz

Other contributions
Kathrin Böhm; Center for Genomic Gastronomy; Leone Contini; Cooking Sections; Chris Fite-Wassilak; Amy Franceschini and Michael Taussig; Fernando García-Dory; Melanie Jackson; Dagna Jakubowska; Nick Laessing; Jane Levi; Poppy Litchfield; Candice Lin; Christine Mackey; Taus Makhacheva; Elia Nurvista; Senam Okudzeto; Thomas Pausz; Daniel Salomon; Vivien Sansour; Standart Thinking; Serkan Taycan; Lantian Xie; Raed Yassin

Published by
Delfina Foundation and Sternberg Press

ISBN-13
978-3-95679-516-9

Photo credit: Tim Bowditch, Nick Laessing

Source: http://www.delfinafoundation.com/platform/...

Life Systems Workshop

4 day workshop with students of the Liceo Scientifico Lussana at GAMeC (Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo), invitation from Meru Art/Science research programme, Bergamo, Italy

Date: Monday, 7 Oct- Sunday, 20 Oct 2019

A creative investigation into sustainable energy.

This four-day workshop will explore energy-ecologies; how might we re-imagine our relationship with technology and energy systems? Group work with students involving discussion and making will explore these issues. Making our own tools, we will investigate generating our own energy and approach the wider questions of how we might reconsider our relationship with technology in the context of climate change and its associated problems. We will explore the cross-disciplinary relationships between artistic and scientific thinking and how this might be useful for approaching today’s problems of climate crisis. The workshop will combine group discussion and reading texts, experiments with generating electricity (with a focus on re-purposing objects and tools). We will use the electricity we generate to film the process on digital media to present a collaborative video work.

Photo credit: Nick Laessing

Source: https://gamec.it/en/meru-artscience-resear...

The Great Exhibition Road Festival

Victoria and Albert Museum, Level 0, Blavatnik Hall

Date: Saturday, 29 June-Sunday 30 June 2019

Explore the Plant Orbiter by artist Nick Laessing, an automated rotating system for food production, which reflects on the role of technology in local urban food production and speculates on food scarcity solutions. 

In the 1970s NASA investigated the possibility of growing plant food in extra-terrestrial environments and discovered that plant growth accelerates in anti-gravity conditions. Though since discarded by NASA, this research has been appropriated by marijuana growers to maximise production for indoor cultivation. Drawing on the NASA research, the Plant Orbiter tests this theory of anti-gravity growth by creating an automated rotating system for food production. 

Photo credit: Hydar Dewachi/ Vctoria & Albert Museum

Source: https://www.greatexhibitionroadfestival.co...

Growing Solutions

Delfina Foundation, Politics of Food Programme

Date: Tuesday, 4 June 2019

Workshop exploring possible futures of cultivation with artist Nick Laessing.

Join our Politics of Food UK Associate Nick Laessing and Dr Ros Gray for a workshop of planting and conversations around technology, food production and usership.

During the workshop participants will have the opportunity to engage in a range of activities preparing the latest version of Laessing’s Plant Orbiter. With its origins in NASA’s investigations the possibility of growing plant food in extra-terrestrial environments, the Plant Orbiter is an automated rotating system for food production.

This workshop is part of a series of public events in Delfina Foundation’s fourth season of the thematic programme The Politics of Food. Subtitled Adapting, this latest iteration will investigate ideas responding to the changing environment of food production.

Biographies:

Ros Gray is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, Critical Studies, in the Department of Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research on the trajectories of militant filmmaking in contexts of anti-colonial and revolutionary struggles has involved exploring the use of film and video in rural development, the setting up of cooperatives, and the denunciation of colonial exploitation of natural resources, as well as the representation of radical social change. She is currently finalising a monograph entitled Cinemas of the Mozambican Revolution (Boydell and Brewer, 2020). Her research interests in environmental violence and the politics of the soil were recently explored through a special issue of Third Text (Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture), co-edited with Shela Sheikh, titled The Wretched Earth: Botanical Conflicts and Artistic Interventions (January 2018). Her writing has also analysed the ecological and planetary resonances of work by artists including Renée Green, Antonio Ole and Kiluanji Kia Henda. Ros is the Coordinator of the Goldsmiths Allotment, which, as well as providing a space for plant cultivation for staff and students, is a platform for various seasonal cultural events, workshops on aspects of sustainable gardening and plant breeding, and a space for meditation and developing thinking around forms of ‘care’ in the context of an educational institution.

Photo credit: Ollie Harrop

Source: http://www.delfinafoundation.com/whats-on/...

Arte Util/ Useful Art 3 Day Workshop

With PhD colleagues Ellie Doney and Kasia Depta Garapich at the Calthorpe Project

Date: Monday, 10 Dec 2018

Arte Útil (Useful Art): A Working Group - three events in December
What is Useful Art and what role can it play in our turbulent times?

Join three PhD researchers from the Slade School of Fine Art UCL, to tackle these questions over three days of utility-based participatory investigations.

In the context of artist Tania Bruguera’s current community engagement project and installation at Tate Modern we invite you to The Calthorpe Project, an inner-city community garden and café in Kings Cross, just a short walk from UCL, where we aim to bring together students, academics, and local community organisers to make, cook, eat and talk together.
Building on Calthorpe’s circular economy and living lab themes, each event will bring participants together with invited guests and academics from across disciplines, including anthropology, art theory and philosophy of science to contribute and share specialist knowledge in group discussions.
The sessions each take a different thematic and practical focus, through which we will discuss art and its relationship with utility, investigating recent developments in art theory and practice. In doing so we will explore the overlaps of art, activism and community action, particularly in response to pressing issues such as climate change and sustainability.

Timetable:
Monday 10th December 13:00 - 16:00
Energy ecologies: utopia and the Anthropocene
Lunch followed by making hydrogen for use as a cooking gas.
Led by Nick Laessing, Slade School of Fine Art.
Tuesday 11th December 13:00 - 16:00
Transmutation of value: materials to object, object makes object
Lunch followed by making edible bowls.
Led by Kasia Depta-Garapich, Slade School of Fine Art
Thursday 13th December 12:00 - 17:00
The material body: edible materials and embodied knowledge in making
Making lunch together using the hydrogen stove, to be served in edible bowls.
Led by Ellie Doney, Slade School of Fine Art / Institute of Making

Photo credit: Adriana Arroyo

UCL Sustainability Week

University College London

Date:  Monday, 29 Oct 2018- Sunday, 4 Nov 2018

Together with PhD colleagues Ellie Doney and Nayoung Jeong we heated water with the solar cooker, inviting students and academics for Korean tea and ramen noodles in the UCL main quad.

Source: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainable/events/2...

Hydrogen –Fuel of The Future?

UCell at The Calthorpe Project

Date: Saturday, 30 June 2018

On the last Saturday of June 2018, we held our workshop at The Calthorpe Project, Hydrogen – Fuel of the Future? The two weeks before the big day were devoted to getting everything ready: preparing the fuel stack and our demonstration kit cars, and Nick put in the extra mile to prepare an impressive demonstration of how to link photovoltaics and water electrolysis. On the day itself, it seemed our marketing efforts had paid off, young and old, from near and far, families, investment bankers, retirees and artists came together at Calthorpe to learn about hydrogen and how to design the energy system of the future. Starting off with an introduction to hydrogen and fuel cells, we quickly moved to the more practical part of the day. All the children were amazed by our fuel cell demonstration cars while their parents were eager to hear about how these work.

From there we went on to our fuel cell stack. We used it to power a fridge filled with drinks and delicious home-made ice cream kindly provided by Calthorpe, to give everyone some much-needed relief from the hot afternoon sun. And while everybody enjoyed their hydrogen-cooled goodies, we went into more detail and explained how energy in our stack is stored and produced.

As a big finale, Nick had connected a dozen solar cells to his home-made water electrolyser. This showed perfectly how we can use renewable energy to produce hydrogen, which then can be fed into fuel cells. We even set up a little work station so everybody could try building a DIY electrolyser. The day was a huge success, there were a lot of questions answered and discussions were so lively that we even struggled to leave Calthorpe at all that day! We had a great day and hope that we can return to The Calthorpe Project in the future.  

Special thanks to Rokiah Yam and all at The Calthorpe Project for hosting us for the day!

Text by Max Maier

Photo credit: Gyen Angel

Source: https://ucellucl.com/2018/07/23/ucell-the-...

Food Futures

The Calthorpe Project

Date: Saturday, 17 Mar 2018

On Saturday 17th March our friends from the Institute of Making at Slade, UCL will be hosting a 1 day workshop with the Calthorpe Project. To learn more about food production, sustainability and closing the energy loop register for your free ticket.

Throughout this wonderland of food activities, you will be introduced to growing in anti-gravity conditions and concoct your own veggie sausages, using ingredients harvested from the Calthorpe Project.

More Information:

‘A one-day hands-on workshop with academics and artists from the Slade School of Art, UCL on the theme of food production, sustainability and closing the energy loop. You will have the opportunity to join an experiment to test a hydroponic plant machine, originally devised by NASA and make your own vegetarian closed loop sausages.

10am – 1pm: Artist Nick Laessing will introduce his Plant Orbiter, a hydroponic machine which tests whether anti-gravity conditions can increase plant growth. His project looks at the future of urban food production, technology and self-sufficiency. You will be invited to plant your choice of edible food plants and herbs for later harvest. Participants can volunteer to become hydroponic gardeners/experimenters during the plants’ growth cycle.

Lunch is provided by the Calthorpe Garden Cafe and includes some of the food grown in the community garden.

2pm – 5pm: Artist Ellie Doney will lead the afternoon’s sausage making workshop, inviting you to choose edible materials grown at the Calthorpe Project to devise, cook and eat closed loop veggie sausages. Using sausage anatomy as a delicious metaphor, we will explore questions about how we eat, what we eat, our bodies, identity and our relationship with our environment. Please bring along an edible ingredient to introduce yourself and add to the sausage pantry.

Nick Laessing is an artist exploring the interfaces of art, technology and eco-crisis. His research project life-systems, addresses how art can confront ecological issues such as food and energy production through speculative technologies that encourage participation and engagement.

Ellie Doney is an artist-researcher whose PhD project Food & Transformation travels the borders of human and non-human matter and asks how we become like the materials we encounter, through cooking and eating with people. Her research unwraps the many layers of properties within matter to find out how we all interrelate.’

Photo credit: Adriana Arroyo

Source: https://www.greenlab.org/2018/03/01/food-f...